Western Producer reporter Mary MacArthur continues her travels across India, exploring the land many say could become the next big market for Canadian farmers.
TANDUR, ANDHRA PRADESH –Forget lentils and chickpeas. If Indians have a choice, they will most often choose pigeon peas as their favourite pulse.
The farming area around Tandur is the premier growing location for pigeon peas, also called red gram.
The 74,000 acres of crop grown in the area commands a higher price than pigeon peas grown in other parts of the country.
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Customers believe the pigeon peas grown in the Tandur area have a longer shelf life, taste better and cook faster, said C. Sudhakar, an agronomist at the Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University research station in Tandur.
Sudhakar doesn’t know of any research to back the claim, but it has given local farmers a few rupees bonus at the market.
“It is one of the most important areas of production of red gram,” he said.
About 1.2 million acres of pigeon peas are grown in the central Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and 9.9 million acres are grown in all of India.
The cool temperatures during flowering and semi-arid conditions, with up to 800 millimetres of rain a year, create ideal growing conditions for the pulse.
It’s not uncommon for farmers to grow 8,000 kg per acre compared to 1,600 to 2,000 kg per acre in other parts of the country.
“Pigeon pea is a crop grown widely by farmers in this area. It has become indispensable,” said Sudhakar.
But good prices and good yields have made farmers abandon their traditional crop rotations of pigeon peas with sorghum or safflower to focus only on the single crop.
Since the abandonment of rotation, crop diseases and pests have started to creep back into the area, despite new more resistant varieties.
As an agronomist working with farmers, Sudhakar said he tries to encourage crop rotations to reduce pests and disease, but it’s hard for farmers to overlook the good prices.
Depending on the year, Tandur farmers could earn about $919 per acre a year with pigeon pea, compared to $182 to $223 per acre for farmers growing the crop elsewhere.
With most farms only 2.5 acres in size, it’s their only farming income.
Because of the demand from farmers and customers for pigeon peas, one of the mandates of the research station is to develop varieties that are more resistant to fusarium wilt and the pod borer insect, as well as being more drought tolerant.
The station is expanding to add a molecular breeding program to help speed up the varietal development process. Farmers also like to grow pigeon peas for the relatively small amount of labour required.
Most of the fields are seeded using a tractor-pulled seed drill with metre-wide row spacing, or a bullock-pulled seed opener.
Seeding is the only time when most farmers use tractors. Once the crop has started to grow, they will switch to a bullock-drawn harrow to slice the weeds between the rows. Another field worker follows behind the bullock harrow propping up any plants that have been damaged.
At harvest, the tall stalks are cut with a sickle and left in the field to dry for about two days.
The seed is harvested by bashing the stalks with a stick. In previous years, some farmers tried using a mechanical harvester, but abandoned the process because of a problem with seed shatter.
Sudhakar said he has also tried encouraging farmers to use integrated pest management by growing short season crops within the rows, adding insect pheromone traps and creating bird-nesting spots, but with little success.
“Unless it is adapted at a wide scale, it is not working.”
Many farmers work off the farm to earn extra cash to subsidize the farm.
“It has helped stabilize their economy,” Sudhaker said.
In the past three years, a new 100-day employment guarantee scheme across rural areas has helped provide jobs and brought extra cash to the local villages.
Even so, most farmers can’t afford to retain their crops for price spikes in the off season market and sell immediately after harvest from December to February.
