Yellow Pea Duty Hike Likely to Boost Rabi Pulse Acreage
31-Oct-2025 01:56 PM
New Delhi. The imposition of a 30 percent customs duty on yellow pea imports by the Central Government, including a standard duty of 10 percent and an Agriculture Infrastructure Development Cess (AIDC) of 20 percent, is expected to increase the area under cultivation of pulses like chickpea and lentils in the current Rabi season. The sowing process has already begun and will continue to accelerate.
The President of the All India Dal Mills Association states that the imposition of customs duty will increase the import cost of yellow peas in India, leading to a strengthening of domestic pulse prices.
This could provide a significant incentive for Indian farmers to increase acreage under pulses in the current Rabi season. In fact, the massive import of cheap yellow peas from countries like Canada and Russia has impacted the demand and consumption of other major pulses in India, leading to a decline in their prices.
Along with yellow peas, India also imports large quantities of Indian chickpeas, pigeon pea, black gram, and lentils. Until March of this year, all these pulses were imported duty-free. Subsequently, a 10% customs duty was imposed on Indian chickpeas and lentils, and now a 30% duty has been imposed on yellow peas.
Due to the large cheap imports of yellow peas and falling prices in the domestic market, farmers were not encouraged to expand the production area of pulses—tur, mung, moth, and black gram—in the Kharif season.
Consequently, only a modest improvement was recorded in the area under cultivation, while crops are also suffering damage from natural disasters.
The area under moong declined from 3.5 million hectares to 3.49 million hectares, while the area under pigeon pea improved from 4.64 million hectares to 4.66 million hectares.
The government was under pressure from all quarters to restrict the area under black gram cultivation, and the Union Agriculture Minister himself wanted to impose a high import duty on it. Now the government has announced this.