Legume Cultivation Offers Path to Reduce India's Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Replacing input-intensive rice-wheat cropping systems with leguminous crops could significantly reduce India's agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, which account for 16 per cent of the country's total. Legumes fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil, reducing the need for synthetic fertilisers and cutting the nitrous oxide and methane emissions associated with conventional cereal farming.

India's post-Green Revolution agricultural model, built around rice and wheat monocultures, has generated substantial environmental costs. Estimates indicate that three-quarters of nitrogen-related agricultural emissions stem from nitrous oxide released through the denitrification of applied fertilisers. Flooded paddy fields additionally produce methane, a greenhouse gas with a warming impact significantly higher than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe. These emissions are driving agriculture's outsized contribution to India's climate footprint.

Leguminous crops including chickpea, groundnut, soybean and lentils such as pigeon pea possess the biological capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen directly into the soil through symbiotic bacteria in their root nodules. This reduces dependence on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, lowers input costs for farmers and improves soil health over successive crop cycles. A meta-analysis published in Agricultural Economics Research Review found that incorporating legumes into cereal rotations can significantly reduce nitrous oxide emissions while maintaining or improving farm profitability.

Scaling up legume cultivation faces structural barriers including procurement support, market price volatility and lack of extension services tailored to legume agronomy. India's existing minimum support price system disproportionately favours rice and wheat, limiting the financial incentive for farmers to diversify. Agricultural policy reform, combined with public investment in pulse crop research and storage infrastructure, will be essential to realising the climate and nutritional benefits that greater legume production could deliver.

Key figure — 16% of India's total greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture