Increasing Production and Consumption of Pulses in the World: Challenges and Opportunities.

The United Nations has declared, ‘2016 as the International Year of Pulses’ to heighten public awareness about the multiple benefits of pulses for healthy people and a healthy planet. Major pulses include dry beans, chick pea, cowpea, lentil, dry peas, pigeon pea, mung bean, urd bean, and moth bean etc eaten as dry seeds in various culinary preparations. Soybean and groundnut are also pulses but classified as oil seeds. Pulses are a significant source of dietary protein, fiber, complex carbohydrates, essential minerals, vitamins and antioxidants with many health benefits to humans including lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, lower glycemic index, healthy heart and reduced colon cancer. Pulses also fix atmospheric nitrogen, improve soil fertility, require less water and emit less CO₂ and therefore, good for the planet’s health. However, pulses production in the world was stagnant at 41 million t from 1961 to 1981, became 56 million t in 2001 and now it is about 73 million t while world population has increased almost three times causing high prices and low per capita consumption leading to wide spread malnutrition especially in India, Asia, Africa and South America where majority depends on pulses for dietary protein. The stagnancy resulted due to expanded cultivation of high yielding cereals which led to green revolution in many countries and pulses were pushed to marginal lands. Also, most of the pulses are low yielding, susceptible to diseases and pests, mature between 100 to 150 days and compete for land with cereals. Recent progress in breeding high yielding disease resistant pulses and ‘60-day’ cowpea varieties have created the opportunity for horizontal and vertical increase in pulses production. Also, with increasing pulses cultivation by the developed countries and emerging biotechnological interventions in controlling insect pests, pulses production is expected to increase manifold in the coming decades.