Agricultural production, marketing and price policy in India

The agricultural situation in India has undergone a change in the last two decades. While the cereals' production recorded a satisfactory growth, pulses production has re mained sluggish. A very large proportion of Indian population is vegetarian and amongst the items of vegetarian diet, pulses are the richest source of protein.

This book presents an integrated analysis of production, marketing and price scene of pulse sector. Detailed features of market struc ture, practices, channels, concent ration of power integration price spread in pulses have been given. Price fluctuations, seasonality in prices, effect of price and non price factors, terms of trade for pulses vis-a-vis other crops and relative changes in inter-crops and input-output price parities have been analysed.

The basic thesis is that the country need not wait for the miracle seed of pulses to be evolved. Even the existing new technologies are yet to be adopted by the farmers. Improvement in pricing and mar keting environment and explicit emphasis on these aspects in agri cultural extension work, can acce lerate the growth of pulse produc tion in the country.