India, the epicentre of the global pulses ecosystem, is currently in transition. From the 2025-26 season, covering Kharif 2025 and Rabi 2026 harvests, the country is now looking forward to the 2026-27 season, and the emerging picture is one of looming climate risk.

India’s key role in global pulses market

As a quick recap, India is the world’s largest producer, processor, importer, and consumer of a wide variety of pulses. Many countries cultivate pulses with India as the major target market.

Over the last four years, the country’s planted area for pulses has actually declined by about one million hectares to 27.7 million hectares.

Production, too, is on a steady decline. From 27.3 million tonnes (MT) in 2021-22, the harvest size is down to an estimated 26.0 MT in 2025-26. Two pulses, namely gram / chana / chickpea (Rabi harvest) and pigeon pea / tur / arhar (Kharif harvest), together account for over 50 per cent of the country’s total annual pulse output.

Imports rise as output falls

Production decline has driven India’s pulses imports higher. From 2.5 MT in 2022-23, imports jumped to 4.7 MT the following year and then to a record 7.2 MT in 2024-25. For 2025-26, the total........

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