A Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant directed the Union government on March 15, 2026, to revisit its existing policy framework and explore better mechanisms to incentivise farmers to diversify from conventional crops like wheat and paddy to pulses. The court directed the Centre, through its Ministries of Agriculture, Commerce, and Consumer Affairs, to convene a multi-stakeholder meeting to examine several critical issues: the absence of an incentivised Minimum Support Price sufficient to cover the full cost of pulse cultivation for small and medium farmers, the absence of guaranteed timely purchase mechanisms for pulses, and the distortive impact of yellow pea imports on the domestic pulse price environment.
The Supreme Court’s intervention comes against the backdrop of a sharp decline in domestic pulse production, from 273 lakh tonnes in 2021-22 to 242 lakh tonnes in 2023-24, partly due to a disease that hit pulse crops across major producing states. This decline led the government to substantially increase imports of yellow peas, primarily from Canada and Australia, which are now priced at levels that undercut domestic pulse producers and create a price disincentive for farmers who might otherwise shift from paddy or wheat cultivation to pulses. The Additional Solicitor-General appearing for the Centre confirmed this dynamic to the court, which responded by observing that the government must realise that the real problem lies in the absence of guaranteed MSP for pulses.
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For UPSC aspirants, this judicial intervention opens a window into one of the most persistent structural failures of Indian agricultural policy: the heavy concentration of price and procurement support on wheat and rice at the expense of nutritionally superior and environmentally more sustainable crops like pulses. The Minimum Support Price regime, the PM-AASHA scheme for assured price support, the import policy for agricultural commodities, and the constitutional responsibility for food security all intersect in this case.
Table of Contents
Background and Context of Pulse Production in India
Five Important Key Points
- India is both the world’s largest producer and the world’s largest consumer of pulses, accounting for approximately 25 percent of global pulse production and 27 percent of global consumption, but this structural position has not translated into consistent self-sufficiency, with domestic production regularly falling short of consumption requirements and creating recurring import dependence.
- The decline in domestic pulse production from 273 lakh tonnes in 2021-22 to 242 lakh tonnes in 2023-24, a drop of approximately eleven percent, was precipitated primarily by a disease outbreak rather than by MSP or market failures alone, but the absence of risk protection and guaranteed procurement for pulse farmers means that production shocks translate immediately into farmer distress without any policy buffer.
- The MSP for pulses is announced annually by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on the basis of recommendations from the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, but the critical difference between pulses and wheat or rice is that the Food Corporation of India does not procure pulses at scale, meaning the MSP announcement is not backed by a credible procurement mechanism that would guarantee farmers the declared price.
- NAFED and NCCF are the nodal agencies for government procurement of pulses under the PM-AASHA scheme, but their procurement capacity and coverage are far smaller than the FCI’s wheat and rice operations, leaving most pulse farmers dependent on private mandis where prices can fall well below MSP, particularly during harvest peaks when market arrivals are high.
- Chief Justice Surya Kant’s observation that land diverted from paddy cultivation could be used for pulse cultivation is analytically significant because paddy cultivation in north India, particularly in Punjab and Haryana, has created an acute groundwater crisis, with water tables falling at rates that threaten long-term agricultural sustainability, making crop diversification toward less water-intensive pulses both a food security imperative and an environmental necessity.
Historical Background: The MSP Architecture and Its Bias
India’s MSP regime was established in 1965-66 as part of the Green Revolution policy framework, with the primary objective of incentivising wheat and rice production to overcome chronic food shortages. Over the subsequent six decades, the MSP architecture developed an entrenched bias toward these two commodities, reflected in the FCI’s massive procurement infrastructure that stands ready to purchase unlimited quantities of wheat and rice from farmers in notified states at declared MSP. No comparable procurement infrastructure exists for any other crop, including pulses, oilseeds, or coarse grains.
This asymmetry has profound consequences for crop choice. A farmer deciding between growing wheat and growing urad dal faces a fundamentally different risk environment: the wheat MSP is backed by guaranteed government procurement at a pre-announced price, effectively eliminating price risk, while the urad dal MSP is an advisory price that the government hopes but cannot guarantee that private markets will honour. Rational farmers, particularly those with limited financial reserves who cannot absorb the price risk of an open market transaction, will systematically choose wheat or rice over pulses, perpetuating the monoculture that depletes groundwater, reduces soil health, and creates nutritional deficits in the domestic food system.
The Import Policy Dimension
The government’s decision to import large quantities of yellow peas to bridge the domestic production shortfall has created a new and potentially self-reinforcing problem. Yellow pea imports from Canada and Australia are priced at levels that reflect the highly mechanised, large-scale, and heavily subsidised production systems of those countries. When these imports enter Indian markets, they compete directly with domestically grown chana, arhar, and moong, depressing farm-gate prices and reducing the incentive for Indian farmers to grow pulses in the next season. This dynamic, known as the import-induced price depression cycle, has been well documented in the oilseeds sector over the 1990s and 2000s following the reduction of import duties on edible oils.
The court’s direction that the government fix the cost price of yellow peas in a way that does not impact home-grown pulses addresses this concern but stops short of recommending specific quantitative restrictions or tariff adjustments, leaving the policy design to the executive. The tension between keeping consumer prices low through cheap imports and protecting farmer incomes through production incentives is one of the most difficult recurring choices in agricultural policy, and the court’s direction to convene a stakeholders’ meeting reflects the judicial recognition that this is a policy choice that needs expert input rather than judicial prescription.
Constitutional Dimensions: Directive Principles and Food Security
The constitutional basis for the court’s engagement with agricultural policy lies in the Directive Principles of State Policy, particularly Article 39(b) which directs the state to ensure that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are distributed as best to sub-serve the common good, and Article 43 which mandates that the state work toward securing, by suitable legislation or economic organisation, a living wage and conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of life for agricultural labourers. While these provisions are not justiciable in themselves, they provide the constitutional mandate for judicial scrutiny of whether the government’s agricultural policies are serving their stated objectives of farmer welfare and food security.
Way Forward
The government should immediately extend FCI-equivalent procurement backing to at least two pulse crops, arhar and chana, in the major producing states, creating a genuine price floor that makes the MSP announcement credible. A dedicated pulse procurement corporation or an expansion of NAFED’s mandate with proportionately increased procurement capital would provide the institutional mechanism for this. The PLI scheme for food processing should be extended to pulse-based food products to create downstream demand that can absorb increased domestic production. Import duties on yellow peas should be calibrated annually on the basis of domestic production data, ensuring that import volumes fall when domestic production recovers.
Relevance for UPSC and SSC Examinations
This topic is directly relevant to UPSC Mains GS Paper III under Indian Economy, specifically agriculture, food security, government interventions in agricultural markets, and MSP policy. It also connects to GS Paper II through the Supreme Court’s supervisory role over executive policy and the Directive Principles of State Policy. For the Essay paper, themes around food security, farmer income, or agricultural reform would draw extensively on this analysis. For SSC examinations, topics of Indian economy, government schemes, and agriculture are tested. Key terms aspirants must remember include Minimum Support Price, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, PM-AASHA, NAFED, FCI, Food Corporation of India, yellow pea imports, crop diversification, Article 39(b), and Directive Principles of State Policy.