Effect of National Food Security Mission on Growth and Stability of Major Pulses Production in India and Karnataka — An Assessment

This paper has analysed the effect of National Food Security Mission (NFSM) on growth and stability of pulses production in major states of India and exclusively in Karnataka. For study, secondary data from published sources were collected for the period 1997–98 to 2013–14. The study has revealed an increasing trend in area, production and productivity of redgram and bengalgram after introduction of NFSM at both all-India and Karnataka levels. In the case of greengram, at all-India level, the growth in area was negative during post-NFSM and positive in pre-NFSM period. The average productivity (kg/ha) of redgram, greengram and bengalgram for all-India has increased to 730, 406 and 913 during post-NFSM period from 682, 350 and 804 pre-NFSM period, respectively. Conversely, in Karnataka (for H-K region), the overall growth in greengram production was negative (−5.42%) and non-significant during pre-NFSM period and positive (11.22%) and non-significant during post-NFSM period. In bengalgram, a significant positive growth in production and productivity was noticed during post-NFSM period. Thus, NFSM has been found to be effective in increasing the production and productivity of pulses and thereby is helping in providing nutritional security to the people of country.