​Farmers’ pulse: on India and its demand for pulses

India manages its prodigious demand for pulses using a mix of import policy, price stabilisation and conditional MSP procurement. Imports are the most sensitive because a single central decision can immediately lower household spending when supply is tight, at the expense of hurting farmers, and knowing that markets cannot always absorb ‘extra’ supply. So, when the U.S. said that its trade deal with India obligated India to purchase pulses from American suppliers, it implied that the government had agreed to committing imports against farmers’ interests — a politically fraught stance in India since the 2020-21 farm law protests and which might see a revival now. India’s pulse output has hovered around 2.5 crore tonnes in recent years while demand is estimated to be three crore tonnes; imports fill the gap. Pulses account for roughly a quarter of non-cereal protein intake and support five crore farmers and their families. In the absence of a reliable MSP regime as for rice and wheat, however, farmers face organised neglect due to weak procurement mechanisms, the risks of rain-fed cultivation, and yields lower than international competitors. In 2019-24, government procurement under the Price Support Scheme fluctuated between 2.9% and 12.4% of production. Many States also have inadequate procurement centres, forcing farmers to sell to private traders regardless of the official MSP. As a result, farmers are incentivised to underinvest in pulses, leading to a vicious cycle.

India recently announced ambitious initiatives to solve this problem, an example being the October 2025 self-sufficiency Mission, with a ₹11,440 crore outlay, targeting 310 lakh hectares of cultivation and 350 lakh tonnes of production by 2030-31. But farmers remain sceptical since older promises have yet to materialise. All this is why the initial apparent inclusion of pulses in the U.S. documents, describing what India would open to American agri-imports, hit a raw nerve among India’s farmers. Opening the market to U.S. pulses would further depress domestic prices and directly contradict the government’s new Mission. Breaking this cycle would require more than removing objectionable words from an agreement, including addressing the procurement infrastructure deficit, providing genuine MSP guarantees, investing in productivity improvements for rain-fed areas where pulses are grown, and creating market systems that explicitly reward farmers who choose to cultivate pulses. Until such structural reforms materialise, however, pulse farmers will continue to occupy a precarious position in India’s agricultural economy and India will continue to depend on imports to meet its demand, perpetuating both food security vulnerabilities and political sensitivity around any trade agreement that appears to favour foreign producers.