Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L. )

Description:

Because the oldest records of the cultivated chickpea are from Turkey, historians assume that the crop spread out globally from that area to Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Today, chickpea is an important crop in these areas. Farmers also cultivate chickpea in Southern and Eastern Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Australia.

The small-seeded desi types, which account for about 85 percent of world production, are grown in the Indian subcontinent, Ethiopia, Australia, Mexico, Afghanistan, and Iran. Some farmers in the Mediterranean, Mexico, and India plant the large-seeded kabuli types. In the tropics and sub-tropics with summer rainfall, chickpea is mostly grown on residual soil moisture or sometimes under irrigation. In the sub-tropics with winter rainfall, farmers generally sow the crop during the spring.

Chickpeas usually receive few inputs other than labor, insecticides, and seed. The major constraints to production include disease susceptibility of local varieties, environmental stresses, drought, diseases, pests, and poor crop management.

Statistics:

During 2002-2004, the global chickpea production was 8.0 million tons from an area of 10.1 million ha, giving an average productivity of 786 kg ha -1 . During the past 20 years (1985-2004), the global chickpea area increased by 7%, yield by 24% and production by 33%.

As of 2004, the most important chickpea producing countries are India (64%), Turkey (8%), Pakistan (7%), Iran (3%), Mexico (3%), Myanmar (3%), Ethiopia (2%), Australia (2%), and Canada (1%).

Chickpea is the third most important food legume globally, grown in over 40 countries representing all the continents. Over 95% of the area, production and consumption is in developing countries.

How Chickpea is Used:

Generally, small-scale farmers grow the crop as both a food and cash crop. People use the seeds whole, dehulled, or as flour. Some people eat the immature shoots and seed as vegetables.

Nutritional Information:

Chickpea is an important dietary item in Southeast Asia, India, Ethiopia, and the West Asia-North Africa region. The protein content of the seed is about 20 percent.

Center’s Work on Chickpea:

The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) both conduct research on chickpea. The work at ICARDA concentrates on kabuli type, while ICRISAT focuses on desi type chickpea. The two centers have worked together at developing high yielding chickpea lines resistant to the ascochyta blight pathogen, which causes losses up to 40 percent.

In the low-elevation areas of the West Asia and North Africa region, chickpea is traditionally grown in spring, after the main winter-season rainfall is over. This leads to poor yields because the crop faces drought and heat stresses. CGIAR research efforts to advance the sowing date of kabuli chickpea to winter, by developing ascochyta blight resistant cultivars with tolerance to cold, have led to potential yield increases of 50-100 percent. National programs in the region have released over 40 chickpea cultivars adapted to winter sowing, and the technology is being increasingly adopted by farmers.

The CGIAR has achieved a breakthrough in desi-type chickpea improvement by breeding wilt resistant, extra-short duration varieties that can grow under the harshest conditions in Eastern Africa and Southern Asia.

Sources:

Technical Advisory Committee: CGIAR Priorities and Strategies for Resource Allocation during 1998-2000.
April 29, 1997.

ICRISAT Website

CGIAR Secretariat: MTM/98/05 Financial Requirements of the 1998 Research Agenda.
May 1998.

Winter Chickpea in Mediterranean-Type Environments.
ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria. 38 pp. Singh, K.B. and Saxena, M.C. 1996.