Enhancing Pulses Production in Bihar: Constraints and Strategies for Sustainable Growth

Abstract

Food grains are the major agricultural commodity, produced on about 93 percent of cropped area, of which pulses share merely 7.06 per cent and the productivity of pulses ranges between 819 kg/ha in 2000-01 to 897 kg/ha in 2013-14. Bihar ranks 9th in terms of pulses production with a contribution of 0.52 million tons to the national pulse pool. Traditionally pulses have been considered important elements of cropping systems in the Bihar, but with the introduction of irrigation and high profitability of alternative sources of soil nutrients in the form of inorganic fertilizers in 1960s, pulses were replaced or relegated to marginal lands and were substituted by high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat. There has been an incessant decline in pulses area, production and productivity during last three and half decades accounting for about 437.24 thousand hectares, 428.93 thousand tons and 981 kg ha-1 respectively in 2014-15 against the corresponding figures of 717.2 thousand hectares, 620.7 thousand tons and 865 kg ha-1 in 2000-01 registering a compound annual decline of-2.5 percent in area and-0.41 percent in production but productivity increased by 2.15 percent per annum. Lentil is only crop which has performed well in Bihar whereas area and production of most of the major pulses have gone down.