India Pulses and Grains Association (IPGA), the nodal body for India’s pulses trade and industry, hosted THE KNOWLEDGE SERIES WEBINAR ON DESI AND KABULI CHICKPEAS with over 850 participants from across 25 countries.
The webinar extensively covered topics like Chickpeas Production: India and other major origins, NAFED’s Procurement, Stock and Selling Policies, Implications of free distribution of Chana under PMGKY scheme, Global and Indian price outlook of Chickpeas, Chana supply and demand trends, India’s import policy and tariff, Kabuli Chana – Production and exports.
The panel boasted of industry stalwarts and domain experts including international speakers like Dr. N.P. Singh, Director, Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Mr. Sunil Kumar Singh – Addl. Managing Director, NAFED, Mr. Gaurav Bagdai – Promoter, G P Agri, Mr. Sanjiv Dubey – Director, GrainTrend Pty Ltd, Australia, Mr. Jayesh Patel – Group CEO & Executive Member, Bajrang International Group, UAE, Mr. Cem Bogusoglu, Global Head – Pulses Trading, G P Global Group, UAE and Mr. Navneet Singh Chhabra, Director, Shree Sheela International, India. The webinar was moderated by Mr. G Chandrashekhar, noted Economist, Senior Editor, Policy Commentator and Agri-business Specialist.
Mr. Bimal Kothari, Vice Chairman – IPGA in his opening remarks said, “The recently introduced agriculture market reforms have enthused all the agri-commodities value chain participants. The Governments progressive steps to encourage contract farming, developing private markets in addition to the APMCs, EC Act amendments will boost the morale of the farmers as well as the trade and industry. IPGA is now aiming higher and working towards more production, processing, value addition, consumption, and trade. Our focus is on developing new initiatives to further strengthen our activities with the eventual aim of making Indian pulses globally competitive.”
Dr. N P Singh, Director, Indian Institute of Pulses Research speaking about the changed Chickpeas scenario over a period of time said, “Strong technology development, increased availability of quality seeds supported by favourable Government policies have helped bring in a Chickpeas revolution in the country which has seen the production grow from a mere 5.60 million metric tons (MMT) in 2005-06 (yield of 810 Kgs/Ha) to around 10.90 MMT this year with a yield of 1,067 Kgs/Ha. Chickpeas have played a key role in the realization of the Pulses Revolution in India making it near self-sufficient in Pulses.”
Dr. N P Singh further added, “Given the excellent climatic conditions and increased MSP, the Kharif sowing of Tur, Urad and Moong this year has gone up by about 20% and this could lead to a slight drop in acreage for Chickpeas. We believe that the demand for pulses is going to increase in coming time. The current requirement is around 28 MMT whereas the production is 24 MMT and despite a buffer stock of 2 MMT, we fell that there will be a shortfall between 2.50 MMT to 5 MMTs next year.”
Mr. Sunil Kumar Singh – Addl. Managing Director, NAFED commented, “Desi Chickpeas will take the center-stage both from the production and consumption side. NAFED will have NIL chickpeas stock going into the next season. We have procured large quantities of Desi chickpeas over the last three years and have a total stock of close to 3.55 MMT out of which 1.50 MMT will get distributed under the PMGKAY programme, about 30% will go towards institutional supplies and the balance will go into the open market. The recent policy decisions by the Government have provided stability to the market with NAFED currently selling chana in the range of Rs. 4350/- quintal to Rs. 4500/- quintal as compared to Rs. 3,800/- to Rs. 4,000/- per quintal about three months back.”
Mr. Sunil Kumar Singh briefing the participants on the current pulses stock position with NAFED stated, “We are currently holding 1.84 Lakh MTs of Moong, 2.73 Lakh MTs of Urad, 8 Lakh MTs of Tur and 17,000 MTs of Masoor.
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