New Delhi, Jan. 4 -- New Delhi: 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 marke...