@incollection{icrisat9413, address = {Bangalore}, pages = {17--33}, author = {C L L Gowda and S K Chaturvedi and P M Gaur and C V Sameer Kumar and A K Jukanti}, year = {2015}, title = {Pulses research and development strategies for India}, publisher = {Commodity India}, booktitle = {Pulses Handbook 2015}, url = {http://oar.icrisat.org/9413/}, abstract = {The world population is projected to grow from the current {\texttt{\char126}}7.3 billion (in 2015) to {\texttt{\char126}}8.9 billion by 2050 (United Nations Report 2004). Therefore, increasing food production to provide food and nutritional security is a challenge. Food and nutritional security becomes all the more important with the certainty of climate change scenario and ever increasing human population. These twin challenges can be addressed to by diversifying the global cropping pattern and by promoting food/grain legume crops, generally called Pulses in India. Legumes include {\texttt{\char126}}750 genera and {\texttt{\char126}}18000 species (Graham and Vance 2003; Polhill et al. 1981). The Legume family consists of important food grain, oilseed, forage, and agroforestry species. The domestication of legumes by humans dates back to Neolithic times. Chickpea (Cicerarietinum) is one of the seven Neolithic founder crops of the near East (Lev-Yadun et al. 2000). Some of the earliest domesticated legumes include: lentil (Lens culinaris; {\texttt{\char126}}9000 yrs; Cohen 1977),beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and soybean (Glycine max; {\texttt{\char126}}3000 year;Hymowitzand Singh, 1987; Kaplan and Lynch, 1999). Legumes form an important part of human daily diet especially in several developing and some developed countries and therefore sometimes legumes are considered as poor man?s meat...}, keywords = {Pulses, India, Pulses research} }