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.
|