With the market prices of kharif pulses, especially tur or arhar, falling below the Minimum Support Price (MSP) in key growing states of Telangana, Maharashtra and Karnataka, the multi-state farmers’ cooperative —National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed) — has commenced procurement of key pulses from the farmers.
Officials told FE that pulses procured would be used for buffer stocking as envisaged by food ministry under the Price Stabilisation Fund.
Nafed has set up procurement centres at Narayanpet, Tandur and Mahbubnagar (Telangana), Latur (Maharashtra) and Bidar and Kalaburgi (Karnataka).
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As farmers since last one week have began bringing in kharif harvest to mandis, the tur or arhar prices have fallen below MSP of R5,050 per quintal in most of the centres across three states. In the last couple of days, Nafed has purchased more than 88 tonne of tur from the farmers.
However, the current situation is in sharp contrast to what was prevailing earlier this year when pulses especially tur prices skyrocketed forcing the government to step up imports and announced abolition of import duties. The government also announced creation of buffer stocks of two lakh tonne.
Till now, more than 1.2 lakh tonne of pulses have been purchased by Nafed, Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium for the buffer stocks. Out of the total pulses procurement in kharif 2016-17, Nafed has purchased more than 68,000 tonne so far.
Retail prices of tur or arhar had crossed R120 per kg across all the key cities earlier this year. According to department of consumer affairs data, the retail tur prices have fallen to R100-110 per kg at present. Officials said that with the arrival of tur in the market, the prices are set to decline further within next one month.
Meanwhile, Nafed has purchased more than 88,000 tonne of groundnut in Gujarat so far as prices had fallen below MSP of R4,220 per quintal announced earlier by the government. “We have been procuring groundnut in Gujarat under the government’s Price Support Scheme (PSS),” a Nafed official said. Under PSS, the government assigns procuring agencies to purchase agricultural commodities from the farmers after the prices fall below MSP.
According to first advance estimated released by agriculture ministry in September, the production of tur is expected to be at an all-time high of 4.29 million tonne (mt) in 2016-17, against the targeted 3.62 mt. The tur or arhar output stood at 2.46 mt in 2015-16 and at 2.81 mt the year before.
The agriculture ministry had stated that the pulses output during 2016-17 crop year (July-June) is expected to be around 20-21 mt.The sources said the drought in 2014 and 2015 had brought down the pulses production to 16.47 mt in 2015-16 and 17.15 mt in 2014-15. The country recorded a 19.25 mt of production in 2013-14.