The prices of pulses may be touching the skies, but the farmers of the country are not attracted to this crop any more. According to a data, the sowing area of pulses has decreased by 25 lakh hectare from the traditional pulses growing region of North India.
This is because the crop is at a high risk of catching disease and the production cost is most of the time not at par with the market prices. The apathy of the state governments and the Centre in addressing this problem is costing them dearly.
This can be understood from the fact that there has been a steep decline in farming of pulses in states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. In the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, farming of pulses has almost stopped.
In the year 1970-71 the total farming area of pulses was 2.25 crore hectare, which in the year 2014-15 has increased to only 2.47 crore hectare. However, it is to be noted that Peninsular India has seen an increase in the farming of pulses. But the farming is largely done on low yield fields with less interest, which is why the production here is low compared to North India.
In the last few years the demand of pulses in the domestic market has increased, but the production has seen a minimal rise due to which the requirement is slowly being met through imports. The farmers are therefore not seeing the crop as a profitable business.
Another problem that has been bogging the farmers is the poor execution of the minimum support price (MSP) scheme. According to a farmer in Uttar Pradesh, there are no government arrangements to buy the yield at MSP due to which the farmers are forced to sell their produce in the open market at low prices.
Until and unless these issues are not taken up by the government seriously, farming of pulses will take a blow.
Image Credit: theindianawaaz.com
