Structural Dynamics of Agri-Import-Export of Pulse Crops to the Total Agriculture Trade in India

India is a land of agriculture, contributing about 14.8 per cent to the national GDP, largest employer in India’s economy with 58 per cent to the total service (Madhusudhan L, 2015).  Adhikari et al., 2016 reported that India’s share in global farm/food exports and imports is around 2.07 per cent and 1.24 per cent, respectively. In conditions of global agricultural and food exports, India’s rank is 10th. India is exporting Wheat to 23 countries including Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapur, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Thailand (Anonymous 2019a). The imports of agricultural products in India mainly comprised of vegetable oil, pulses,  wood and wood products accounting about 77.71 per cent of the total agricultural imports in terms of value in 2010-11 (Vilas et al., 2012). The largest export in agricultural sector in India is Basmati rice, wheat and other cereals while biggest import product includes edible oil and pulses.
               
India is the leading exporter of tea, sugar, tobacco, spices and products with agricultural content (jute, cloth and sugar products). In recent times, buffalo meat and guar gum exports have shown significant volume growth in exports of India. Additional, the share of processed food such as mango pulp, dried and preserved vegetables, meat and poultry items has also increased. It seems that India has different strategies for agriculture exports. In the first, strategy, the trade rule is relatively open for customary commodities like tea, coffee, tobacco and spices. In the second strategy, the cereals sector remained mainly insulated from world markets due to the fears of food security. There is a need of endorsement efforts to add to in productivity, quality awareness, worth adding, better infrastructure, product diversification and marketing. After signing the WTO, India has more opportunities as well as challenges. There is a need of well definite strategy to crop the benefits of the potential agricultural exports as well as to protect the traditional base of agricultural exports from India to the global world (APEDA, Agri-Exchange). Ansari and Khan (2015) observed India’s competitive advantage over the export of meat, rice, oilseed, wheat, tea and coffee in the post-WTO period, however, lack of public participation, inadequate transportation facilities and lack of credit facilities were found as the major challenges before the nation. Kumar and Dadhich (2013) reported that India has losing out its share in export of some of agricultural commodities during the period after economic reform 1991. Pulses play an important role in providing a nutritionally balanced diet. These are the principal source of protein for vegetarians (Narayan and Kumar, 2015). Kumar and Dutt (2019) reported that in India, about 5.63 to 10.90 per cent share of food grains production is pulses. The cropped area, production and productivity of total pulses in India shows positive trend from 10th Five Year Plan.

Keeping all facts in view, the study was undertaken to analyse the trends in export and import of major agriculture commodities including pulses, growth pattern and stability in exports and imports and balance of trade of Pulses and total agriculture in India.

This study was conducted and analysed at CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana in the year 2018-19. Secondary data were collected from the FAO data base. Data were based on export and import major agricultural commodities of India for the period 1990-2016. The growth in trade for Agricultural commodity of India was analyzed by employing an exponential model of the form Y_t = ab^tu_t. The exponential trend is preferred to other models on the ground that governments tend to plan on the basis of growth rates other than absolute changes.
               
The linear and compound growth rate was derived to study the trends of export and import of major agricultural commodities. The following formulas used to compute the linear and annual compound growth rate. Where;
Y_t = Dependent variable for which growth rate is to be estimated (trade value).
a = Intercept.
b = Regression coefficient.
t  = Time variable.
u = Disturbance term.
The linearly transformed estimating form of the above equation is
   
Then, an estimate of the average annual percentage rate of growth of trade series for the t-years period is computed from the regression coefficient.
               
The log-inverse (e raised to the power) of the regression coefficient (log b) for the time period (t), minus one (1), multiplied by 100 constitutes the growth rate for each commodity considered and each dependent variable.  
               
The balance of trade is the difference between the value of all the goods and services a country exports and the goods and services it imports. The balance of trade is the largest and most important part of a nation’s current account. A country that exports more than it imports creates a positive balance of trade, which is called a trade surplus. When a country takes in more than it exports, it has a negative balance of trade, which is called a trade deficit. The balance of trade was derived to study the trends of export and import of major agricultural commodities. The following formula used to compute the balance of trade.  
The coefficient of variation (CV) is a statistical measureof the dispersion of data points in a data series around the mean. To fulfil the third objective of study, secondary data were collected from the FAO data base. Data were based on export and import major agricultural commodities of India for the period 1990-2016. The coefficient of variation was derived to study the trends of export and import of major agricultural commodities. The following formula used to compute the CV:-       
A coefficient of variation (CV) can be calculated and interpreted in two different settings: analyzing a single variable and interpreting a model. The standard formulation of the CV, the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean, applies in the single variable setting. In the modelling setting, the CV is calculated as the ratio of the root mean squared error (RMSE) to the mean of the dependent variable. In both settings, the CV is often presented as the given ratio multiplied by 100. The CV for a single variable aims to describe the dispersion of the variable in a way that does not depend on the variable’s measurement unit. The higher the CV, the greater the dispersion in the variable. The CV for a model aims to describe the model fit in terms of the relative sizes of the squared residuals and outcome values. 

Pulses export and import trends
 
Pulses export and import values ranged from 10.29 to 217.30 and 300.03 to 4017.36 US$ million during over all period (1990-2016). In overall period the pulses export and import increased at compound annual growth rate 11.22, 14.49 per cent respectively. India is the largest producer and consumer of the pulses. After liberalization Indian pulse production increased i.e. after 1990. It is evident that, the export of pulse is increasing over a period of time according to Table 1 and Fig 1. The trends reached its peak period in 2013 i.e. 358.69 US$M and thereafter it started to decline and reached to 217.30 US$M in 2016. The export of pulse declined after 2013 because pulse export was prohibited except Kabuli chana in 8.6.2014 and the validation extended up to 31.3.2017. Export went down as the result of a government ban imposed, in response to pressure that the country might face a food deficit after that India stopped export of pulses except Kabuli chana. India is the world’s largest producer (18.5 million tons) and consumer (over 3 million tons) of a variety of pulses. Pulse import showed an increasing growth over a period of time from 300 US$M in 1990 to 4017.36 US$M in 2016 as indicated in the Table 1 and Fig 1 and the increase was mainly due to increase in the pulse consumption rate of pulses by the country.
 

 

 
Total agriculture trade export and import (1990 to 2016)
 
Total agriculture tradeexport has increased over all period from 3074.60 to 26489.18 US$M during 1990-2016 and showed positive trend (Table 2 and Fig 2). The highest export value was observed in 2013 whereas the lowest in 1991. Similarly, total agriculture trade import has been increased rapidly and showed positive trend. ranged from 742.43 to 23895.77 US$M from 1990 to 2016.In overall period the total agriculture trade export and import increased at compound annual growth rate 11.23 and 13.54  per cent respectively. The share of individual commodities in the total agricultural commodities. The percentage share of individual commodities is increased in the total agriculture export of India. Total agriculture commodities productions are increased therefore export has increased more than import (Table 2 and Fig 2).
 

 

 
Balance of trade of agricultural commodities
 
The balance of trade has been worked out for pulse which was -289.74 in 1990 and reaches upto -3800.06 in 2016 (Table 1). It was observed to be negative due to increased import to meet out the domestic demand because of shortage in supply/production. On the other hand the balance of trade for agricultural commodities was found positive (1989.89 in 1990 to 6463.69 in 2015) as the export is always more than the total imports of agricultural commodities during the periods (Table 2).

India is a land of agriculture, contributing about 15 per cent to the national GDP, largest employer in India’s economy with 52 per cent to the total services. India’s share in global farm/food exports and imports is around 2.07 per cent and 1.24 per cent, respectively. Thus, India is a net exporter of agricultural products. In conditions of global agricultural and food exports, India’s rank is 10th. The largest export in agricultural sector in India is Basmati Rice, Wheat and other cereals while biggest import product includes edible oil and pulses.  India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world, accounting for about 25% of global production, 27% of consumption and 34% of food use. Pulses export and import values ranged from 10.29 to 217.30 and 300.03 to 4017.36 US$ million during over all period (1990-2016). In overall period the pulses export and import increased at compound annual growth rate 11.22, 14.49 per cent respectively. India is the largest producer and consumer of the pulses. Total agriculture trade export has increased over all period from 3074.60 to 26489.18 US$M during 1990-2016 and showed positive trend. The highest export value was observed in 2013 whereas the lowest in 1991. Similarly, total agriculture trade import has been increased rapidly and showed positive trend. ranged from 742.43 to 23895.77 US$M from 1990 to 2016. In over all period the total agriculture trade export and import increased at compound annual growth rate 11.23 and 13.54  per cent respectively.
               
The findings also suggest that there is a need to promote value added agricultural export expansion policies in order to achieve high economic growth. Generally, the government of India should improve resources and development investment in agricultural research and extension services in order to improve the use of genetic materials and purchase inputs. The results of the study revealed in general the export of agriculture commodities except for pulses which showed downward trend. There is a need to concentrate on the production of pulses which has the large potential for exports. Special pulses mission may be launched at National Level to meet the growing demand for pulses and push pulses into the International market as well as substitute imports of the same.