New Delhi, Jan. 5 -- The government may announce a dedicated research and development (R&D) corpus for pulses and cotton in the Union budget for FY27, as it looks to address India's persistent yield gaps, two government officials aware of the discussions said. The move aims to curb India's dependence on imports and reduce the harvests' vulnerability to climate shocks, they said. The allocations for research could be carved out from the government's ongoing missions for the crops, they said. Despite being world's largest producer of pulses and the second-largest cultivator of cotton, India's productivity in both crops remains well below global averages, leaving domestic supplies exposed to weather disruptions and external market swings even as demand continues to rise. While the average yield in pulses was 926 kg per hectare as against a global average of 1,015 kg in FY25, the country's cotton yield was 440 kg per hectare compared with a global average of around 820 kg during the period. India produced 25.6 million tonnes of pulses and 29.7 million bales of cotton in FY25, way below the country's domestic demand. As per the agriculture ministry's annual report for FY25, pulses were cultivated over 27.52 million acres, while cotton covered 13 million hectares across the country. "These new seed varieties will strengthen our pest and disease management systems, and expand field trials to speed up adoption at the farm level. In the case of pulses, the emphasis will be on improving yields through better genetics and region-specific agronomic practices," said one of the two government officials cited above requesting anonymity. "For cotton, additional support is expected to target persistent challenges such as bollworm resistance, water-efficient cultivation and fibre quality improvement, amid stagnant yields and rising input costs." As per a Niti Aayog report released in September 2025, using 2022 as the base year, the static or household approach estimates that pulses demand will rise to 26.8 million tonnes by 2030 and 29.3 million tonnes by 2047, based on population growth projections and a base-year per capita net availability of 17.69 kg per year, which translated into a total demand of 24.89 million tonnes in 2022. In contrast, the normative approach projects a much sharper increase, with pulse demand at 46.33 million tonnes by 2030 and 50.26 million by 2047. The normative approach estimates future food demand by assuming what people should ideally consume, rather than what they now do....