Technology-Policy Tradeoff in Doubling Farmers’ Income: A Case Study on Pulses

The paper has studied technology-policy tradeoff in doubling the income of farmers by selecting pulses, arhar and gram. The study has revealed that making available the existing technologies and factors at further scale to farmers through bridging yield gaps would greatly help in increasing the output at farm level. The study has shown that a slight increase in MSP and FHP can double the real income of the gram and arhar growing farmers by 2022. The scenario analysis has indicated that the real ‘gross’ income in arhar can be doubled just by achieving yield levels of 24 q/ha in Maharashtra and 14 q/ha in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka by the year 2022, and letting the MSP and FHPs to increase by 10 per cent a year. An increase in FHPs by 420/q, 646/q and 211/q, respectively in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan above the presumed 10 per cent increase a year for the given yield levels of 12–14 q/ha would double the real ‘gross’ income by 2022. Further, estimates have indicated that levels of cost increase that would allow doubling both ‘gross’ and ‘net’ real income levels are 28 per cent, 29 per cent and 34 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan for gram, and 21 per cent, 27 per cent and 23 per cent in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka for arhar, respectively.