Pulses production, trade and policy imperatives : A global perspective

Pulses are important in global agriculture not only for its nutritive value as a major source of protein, but also plays an important role in making agriculture sustainable. On the sustainability front, pulses need less water, less input intensive and also fixes atmospheric nitrogen (N). Globally, the area under pulses has increased from 64.14 Mha (Triennium Ending (TE) 1970) to 93.54 Mha (TE 2019) and correspondingly, the production also increased from 42.1 Mt to 92.13 Mt. The productivity of pulses during the same period has increased from 664 kg ha-1 to 994 kg ha-1, India has the maximum area under pulses with 33.35 Mha, which accounts for 35% of the global area producing 26% of the global production. Taking the country with highest productivity as a benchmark, we estimate the efficiency gap for 171 pulses producing countries, which range from 15 to 98% indicating the vast potential to increase the pulses production. Only 19.01 Mt of pulses is traded in the world market, which is dominated by Canada (5.70 Mt), followed by Australia (2.07 Mt). The chapter also presents the results of bibliometric analysis using the peer-reviewed publications between 2000 to 2021 and provides an overview of the global research networks and trends. India has been identified as a major contributor to global research output. Apparently, it is the largest producer (26%), consumer (27%) and importer (15%) of the pulses. To increase the pulses production and to bridge the gap between demand and supply, India has implemented several policy initiatives and research priorities for the overall pulses sector development. We hypothesise that such initiatives have led the countries to witness an increase in production leading to decline in imports implying self-sufficiency. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the global pulses production, trade and policy implications with a special focus on Indian scenario