Peer review

Indian agriculture have made strides and with advancements in science and development, it has witnessed several revolutions ranging green, white, blue, yellow etc. However, there is long way to go for a revolution on nutritional security. Though is the largest producer (17—19 million tonnes), consumer (21—23 million tonnes) and importer (2—4 million tonnes) of the pulses in the world accounting for their respective proportion of 25, 27 and 14% at global scale, the country still has maximum number of malnourished people in the world. The increased supply of proteins from the pulses, therefore, will definitely ensure the nutritional security for the rural and urban poor and the vegetarian society. Besides serving as an important source of protein for a large segment of population, pulses contribute to healthy soils and climate change mitigation through their nitrogen-fixing properties and sustainability of cropping systems Though significant efforts have been made to enhance productivity and production of pulses, a major breakthrough has yet to see the light of the day, and hence pulses are becoming less competitive over cereals and other crops; intensive and monotonous farming of which is causing another challenges of natural-resource degradation and sustainability concerns. Agronomic innovations such as conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification may provide double benefits of bringing additional acreage under pulses and making systems sustainable. India has a huge potential to increase pulse production through these innovations and meet its nutritional demand. In this paper, we provide a review and synthesis on opportunities for increasing pulse production while improving resource—use efficiency through agronomic innovations.

Text in English