WORRIED over the falling output of pulses and big forex spending on imports, authorities are drawing up a Rs2bn plan to attract farmers to boost pulses’ production.

According to this plan, new varieties of seeds will be developed and farmers will be incentivised to grow more pulses, Minister for National Food Security and Research (MNFSR) Sikandar Hayat Bosan informed media in mid-April.

Pulses production has been on the decline for various reasons. And the most important of them is that even small farmers find it more profitable to grow key food crops like wheat, rice, maize and sugarcane, officials say. For past four years, the area under cultivation of pulses’ crops including gram has averaged around 1.15m hectares, down from 1.25m hectares in FY13, officials of MNSFR say.

Low domestic production necessitates imports and every year hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on importing pulses. In nine months of this fiscal year, more than $721m have already been spent on imports of pulses and leguminous vegetables, trade data show. The annual import bill under this head for last four full fiscal years averaged $410m.

Officials and growers say that major food crops not only give higher returns to farmers but due to their better supply chain linkages, marketing of major crops is easier than that of pulses. Traders in key wholesale commodity markets, Karachi’s Jodia Bazar and Lahore’s Akbari Mandi, say that prices of local pulses often remain higher than imported ones, reducing their demand in domestic markets and thereby discouraging growers.

A weak price discovery system is another key problem being faced by growers of minor crops. And pulses are no exception

Growers lobby groups also cite this factor as a reason for decline in pulses’ production adding that the cost of inputs on minor crops in the country is just too high. The solution is in innovative farming techniques and adoption of technological advances in cultivation and marketing process, analysts say.

But the problem is that due to traditional culture and small growers’ lesser access to low cost formal finance it’s not easy for them to acquire new irrigation technology or invest in marketing of their produce. Drip irrigation, and simultaneous cultivation of pulses alongside major crops, for example can cut costs of cultivation for farmers. But it is not done on a large scale.

Similarly use of bio-pesticides which is gaining currency in pulses cultivation in developed countries can keep the cost of pulses cultivation low and can attract farmers towards growing pulses. “But that is still unheard of, in our country,” says a progressive pulses grower from Punjab. Bio-pesticides are bio-chemical substances found in agricultural soils and can be extracted and employed in pulses farming specially when pulses crops are grown on the periphery of major crops.

Weak price discovery system is another key problem being faced by growers of minor crops. And pulses are no exception. Growers say last year’s contract prices with dealers or middlemen are no indication for next year. Most of the time, middlemen or traders dictate prices of the whole crop of a particular pulse in an area and that price could be off-market. Often the growers are indebted to the middleman and he is the sole buyer.

As a result, after suffering losses or earning a little profit in a year, the grower switches over to cultivation of other crops the following year.

White and black gram, or chickpeas of various varieties, are now grown over 900,000 hectares, officials say. But up till FY12, this particular crop covered slightly over 1m hectares. Small wonder then that, according to the Federal Committee on Agriculture, the production of gram fell to less than 360,000 tonnes in the last season from 750,000 tonnes in 2013. The combined output of moong, masoor and mash pulses declined to about 130,000 tonnes from 150,000 tonnes.

Federal food minister has informed the nation that a plan to boost pulses production will be carried out with a cost of Rs2bn. But except for saying that the amount will be spent on development of better seeds and incentives to farmers, he has given no other details.

Officials of Sindh agriculture department say they are not aware of any such plan but speculate that it might be announced in the next year’s federal budget. Officials of Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) say they have been working on development of disease and pest-resistant seed varieties for pulses.

Recently Punjab Seed Corporation has launched an initiative to ensure supply of quality seeds of pulses to growers, officials claim.

Commodity market analysts stressed the need to boost pulses production must focus enhancing the per-hectare yield as the yield gap is just too big.

For example, the national average yield of chickpea is a little over 400kg, whereas in two main chickpea producing states of India (Maharashtra and Rajasthan), it is as high as 800kg. In some chickpea growing regions of Australia, the yield ranges between 1,500-2,000kg.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, May 1st, 2017