Duty-free import of yellow peas till FY26 may depress chana prices and hurt farmer income, traders warn. Imported yellow peas, a cheaper substitute for chana, are flooding the market, risking a shift in crop patterns and impacting India's pulse production stability.Earlier an import duty of 50% was imposed on the pulses' variety to encourage domestic production of chana in 2017.
The government’s decision to allow duty-free import of yellow peas, used as cheaper substitute of chana, till end of FY26 would hit domestic prices, and force farmers to shift to other remunerative crops, traders and processors fear.
They said that continuance of dumping of the cheap imported yellow peas would keep the mandi prices depressed and would discourage farmers to grow chana, which accounts for about 50% of the country’s pulses production.“We have urged the government several times to impose atleast 50% import duties on yellow peas so that domestic mandi prices remain stable and farmers are incentivised,” Satish Upadhyay, secretary, India Pulses and Grains Association, told FE.Currently Mandi prices of chana (chickpeas) in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two key producing states, are ruling in the range of Rs 5200/quintal – Rs 5500/quintal against the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 5650/quintal for 2024-25 season.
The pulse variety which is currently being imported from Russia and Canada at around $ 360/tonne or around Rs 3400/quintal is being widely used as besan (chickpea flour) for making snacks.
