What’s Common Between Egyptian Cotton and Indian Pulses?

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In the recent past, Welspun India Ltd, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

The US retailer Target terminated its contract with the company for supplying bedsheets. Bloomberg puts the value of this business at $90 million. The stock price of Welspun has fallen by half over the last 10 days (between August 19 and August 29).

Welspun was supposed to supply bedsheets and pillowcases made of Egyptian cotton to Target. It seems that over the last two years, the company had been substituting Egyptian cotton with non-Egyptian cotton.

Fibres made from Egyptian cotton are longer than those made from regular cotton. This makes the fabric stronger. Further, bedsheets made from Egyptian cotton are also softer than those made from regular ones. For these qualities, in Egypt, cotton is also referred to as white gold.

Hence, given that Welspun was using other types of cotton, it wasn’t producing bedsheets that Target wanted it to. In the process, it lost the contract.

As to why Welspun did what it did, I really don’t know and that is not the reason behind writing this piece. What I am basically interested in is Egyptian cotton and the one common characteristic it shares with Indian pulses.

The production of Egyptian cotton has been falling over the years. Estimates made by United States Department of Agriculture – Foreign Agriculture Service (USDA—FAS) suggest that in the 1980s, Egypt grew cotton on an area of 5,00,000 hectares per year. This fell to 4,00,000 hectares per year in the 1990s. By the turn of the century this had fallen to 2,23,000 hectares of area. In 2015-2016, this fell to 1,00,000 hectares of area.

The USDA—FAS suggests that in 2016-2017, the area on which cotton has been planted in Egypt has fallen further to around 50,000 hectares. This is a huge fall of 50 per cent in just one year. The production is expected to fall to 1,50,000 bales from a production of 3,20,000 bales last year.

This is happening primarily because the cotton farmers are concerned “in terms of their ability to market the crop, especially with the lack of strong commitment from the government that it will buy the crop from farmers.” Over and above this, “Egypt’s industry is relying less on the domestic crop which is comprised mostly of extra-long staple and long staple varieties, while users’ needs have shifted to medium and short staple varieties.”

Hence, while there is a demand for long staple Egyptian cotton internationally and there is a premium for it, that doesn’t seem to be the case within the country. This along with the fact that the Egyptian government hasn’t shown a strong commitment of buying cotton, has led to farmers planting less and less of cotton. Instead of growing cotton, the Egyptian farmers seem to be growing rice. The area under cultivation has jumped from 4,62,000 hectares last year to 6,50,000 hectares this year.

In fact, in India, pulses have been going through a similar phenomenon. While, the total production of pulses hasn’t fallen as dramatically as the production of cotton has fallen in Egypt, it hasn’t gone up either.

Take a look at the following chart. This shows the total production of pulses over the last 30 years.

As is obvious, the total production of pulses has more or less been flat over the last thirty years. In 1986-1987, India produced 16.32 million tonnes of pulses. In 2015-2016, the total production was at 17.06 million tonnes, as per the third advanced estimate published by the ministry of agriculture.

What does this tell us? It tells us that production of pulses has more or less been flat over the last three decades, even though the demand for it has gone up. How do we know that? Take a look at the following chart. It shows the total quantity of pulses that India has imported ever year, since 1990-1991.

In 2015-2016, the import of pulses peaked at 5.80 million tonnes. The increased import of pulses shows that the demand for pulses has gone up over the years, as the income has gone up and people have started eating better, leading to a demand for protein based food products. Pulses are an excellent source of proteins for vegetarians.

In fact, it is safe to say that the real demand for pulses is higher than the total production plus import number, given that even after increased imports, the price of different kind of pulses has continued to remain strong. Hence, many people are either not able to afford pulses or have had to simply cut down on its consumption.

A further increase in imports is not the solution given that India is the largest producer, consumer and importer of pulses in the world. The interesting thing is that despite rising prices, over the last few years, the production of pulses hasn’t gone up. This is primarily because the government up until now had been procuring only rice and wheat directly from farmers. It hasn’t been serious about procuring pulses like the Egyptian government hasn’t been serious about procuring cotton.

And given this ready availability of a buyer, the farmers find it safe to grow rice and wheat. This has led to the production of rice and wheat going up at a steady rate. In fact, now we have reached a stage where on the whole we are overproducing rice and wheat and not producing as much pulses and oilseeds as are required.

Along with the farmers preferring to grow rice and wheat what has not helped is the fact that the last two years’ rains have failed. Given that only 16.1 per cent of area under production of pulses is irrigated (2011-2012 data), the total production took a beating.

This year the government has started to buy pulses (like it buys rice and wheat) to build a buffer stock. The idea is to encourage the farmers to grow pulses given that the government is a ready buyer. It remains to be seen whether the procurement machinery of the government can gear up to the challenge of procuring pulses.

As economists Ashok Gulati and Shweta Saini write in The Indian Express: “The existing procurement machinery is more attuned to procuring rice and wheat than pulses — they require an operationally different treatment. This necessitates gearing up the system accordingly.”

Also, on August 26, 2016, the government ordered imports of 90,000 tonnes of pulses in order to add to the buffer stock. Following this procurement, the buffer stock of pulses has jumped to 1.76 lakh tonnes.

The other encouraging piece of information is that area on which kharif pulses (arhar, moong and urad) have been sown this year has gone up dramatically. As on August 26, 2016, the total area on which pulses had been sown stood at 13.94 million hectares, up by around 34.3 per cent from last year.

This basically means that the prices of the kharif pulses will come down in the months to come as the increased production starts to hit the market. At the same time the government needs to step up procurement in order to ensure that a bumper crop doesn’t lead to a dramatic fall in prices. If that turns out to be the case, then enough farmers will not be encouraged to sow pulses again next year and we will end up with the same problem.

This is important given that even the bumper crop won’t be able to cover for the 5.80 million tonnes of pulses that were imported in 2015-2016. Also, the basic problem of Indian agriculture i.e. well-functioning private markets through which farmers can hope to make some money and not be taken for a ride by the intermediaries, continues to remain.

The column originally appeared in Vivek Kaul’s Diary on August 30, 2016

 

‘Dal’onomics 101: All you Wanted to Know but were Afraid to Ask

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The consumer price inflation number is released every month by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation. For the month of May 2016, among all items that constitute the index, the price of pulses rose the fastest. The price of pulses(dal) rose by 31.6% between May 2015 and May 2016. This after rising by 16.6% between May 2014 and May 2015.

Hence, over a two-year period the price of pulses has risen by around 53.4%. This is as per the consumer price index, the rise in price at the actual retail level might be more. The only other items that saw double digit inflation, over the last one year, were vegetables and sugar.

Of course, this rise in price must have upset the monthly budget of many homemakers. Nevertheless, the rise in price of pulses is not something new. It is now a part of our lives. The question is why is this happening?

In the budget speech made in February, earlier this year, the finance minister Arun Jaitley had said that: “Monitoring of prices of essential commodities is a key element of good governance. A number of measures have been taken to deal with the problem of abrupt increase in prices of pulses.
has approved creation of buffer stock of pulses through procurement at Minimum Support Price and at market price through Price Stabilisation Fund
.”

On the face of it, this sounds a sensible thing to do. Up until February, the government maintained buffer stocks for rice and wheat. The idea was that it could do the same for pulses as well. If prices went up, some of the buffer stock could be released in the market and prices be stabilised.

The trouble is what works with rice and wheat doesn’t necessarily work with pulses. With an assured procurement of rice and wheat by the government, India produces much more rice and wheat than it needs. As the Economic Survey of 2015-2016 points out: “It is increasingly clear that there is over-production of cereals, especially in some states. Reducing this over-production—a manifestation of this exit problem—is difficult.”

What is the trouble with the government procuring pulses as well? The dietary patterns as they evolve seem to favour increased protein and pulses are a major source of protein, in a country, where a significant portion of the population is vegetarian.

The trouble is that the production of pulses hasn’t been going up. In 2013-2014, the total production of pulses stood at 19.25 million tonnes. In 2014-2015, this fell to 17.15 million tonnes. The target though was at 20.05 million tonnes. The expected production in 2015-2016(as per the third advanced estimate) has fallen even further at 17.05 million tonnes.

The failed monsoon over the last two years is the obvious explanation for this. Also, what does not help is that a major portion of pulses are produced in unirrigated areas unlike rice and wheat. As the Economic Survey points out: “The production pattern for pulses is very different from other crops. Not only is most of the land dedicated to growing pulses in each state unirrigated, but the national output of pulses comes predominantly from un-irrigated land. In contrast, a large share of output in wheat, rice and sugarcane – in Punjab, Haryana and UP – is from irrigated land.”

Hence, for a pulses production to increase a good monsoon is necessary. In this scenario of falling production of pulses, the government decision to build a buffer stock hasn’t really helped. In early March 2016, the ministry of agriculture told the Rajya Sabha that the government has decided to build a buffer stock of pulses amounting to 0.15 million tonnes. One third of the amount had already been procured.

This meant that the overall supply of pulses to the open market fell further, driving up prices. Given the huge gap between demand and supply, even a small fall in supply, can drive up prices.

The following table shows the total amount of pulses that have been imported over the years.

Chart 4.6: India’s Imports of Pulses, 2004-05 to 2014-15India's Imports of Pulses, 2004-05 to 2014-15In 2014-2015, the total amount of pulses imported stood at 4.57 million tonnes. As can be seen from the table, the total amount pulses imported has gone up dramatically over the years. Between April 2015 and February 2016, the country imported 5.56 million tonnes of pulses. (Source: Commodity Profile of Pulses, May 2016).

Myanmar remains a major source for import of pulses. But despite the imports, the prices of pulses continued to rise. As the report titled Price Policy for Kharif Crops—The Marketing Season of 2016-2017 points out: “India being the largest producer, consumer and importer of pulses in the world, its domestic demand-supply volatility has high impact on international trade.

This means that Indian demand drives up prices in international markets. So, even if we are able to import pulses to meet demand, the prices continue to remain high. As the Economic Survey points out: “Given that India is the major producer and consumer of pulses, imports cannot be the main source for meeting domestic demand. Therefore, policy must incentivise movement of resources towards production of pulses.”

One reason why farmers do not like to grow pulses despite such high prices is that unlike rice, wheat and sugarcane, there are no steady buyers. This means that farmers have to sell their produce in private markets where they can get a price even lower than the MSP. And given this, lack of predictability about a price, farmers prefer to grow rice and wheat.

In an ideal world, the way out of this would be develop a proper agricultural market where market forces would do their work. But in India, what is likely to happen is that the government will procure more and more pulses, like rice and wheat, in the years to come.

As the report titled Price Policy for Kharif Crops—The Marketing Season of 2016-2017 points out: “The long-term measures include increasing productivity, bringing more area under pulses cultivation by diversifying from paddy and wheat alongside providing adequate facilities for assured procurement, creating buffer stock of pulses and their distribution through Public Distribution System (PDS).”

This is a bit of a chicken and egg story. As the government procures more pulses, the supply in the open market will fall, pushing up prices, until the government releases pulses into the open market. This is how things will operate, with spurts in prices of pulses, until enough farmers know about the fact that the government is procuring pulses as well, along with rice and wheat. This knowledge will then lead to more farmers cropping pulses and a gradual increase in production, in the years to come.

Also, the yields of pulses in India is very low in comparison to other countries. As the Economic Survey points out: “India has low yields comparable to most countries. On an average, countries like Brazil, Nigeria, and Myanmar have higher yields. Some states do much better than the all-India average, but even the key pulse producing state of Madhya Pradesh has yields (938 kg/ha) barely three-fifths that of China’s (1550 kg/ha).”

Price stabilisation of pulses also requires an improvement in the yields.

The column originally appeared in Vivek Kaul’s Diary on June 24, 2016