Abstract
The paper presents the yield gaps, adoption of improved varieties and the commercial behaviour in seed of smallholder chickpea producers based on the primary data collected from 612 randomly selected farmers covering 36 kebeles from 18 chickpea-producing districts, in 2017. The results indicate that the estimated average yield gaps were lower by 37.97 and 49.17% for desi chickpea and by 29.62 and 40.97% for kabuli chickpea, than the yields achieved on farmers’ fields with improved variety and recommended practice and on-research stations, respectively. Overall, 43% of the chickpea producers were full-adopters, 9.5% partial adopters and the remaining 47.5% are non-adopters of improved varieties. Given the recent introduction of kabuli chickpea, all respondents reported the use of improved varieties (42.5%). Of the total 57.5% desi chickpea producing farmers, only 9.6% were full adopters. The commercial behaviour in chickpea seed use indicates that 55.4% of the farmers were autarkic who did not engage in chickpea seed markets, whereas 22% used purchased seed, 11.4% sold seed, and the remaining 11.1% were engaged in the seed market both as buyers and sellers. These results imply that there is a huge potential to narrow the yield gaps provided that the national seed system responds adequately to the key factors of adoption along with the smallholder farmers’ commercial behaviour in chickpea seed system. Key words: Chickpea, yield gap, adoption, commercial behaviour, seed system.  
Highlights
The historical developments of organized seed sector were summarized in Ethiopia (Bishaw and Atilaw, 2016)
The adoption rate of improved chickpea varieties was estimated at household level, where a household is categorized into nonadopter, partial adopter, and full adopter since data was collected at plot level
From household’s market participation perspectives, the commercial behaviour can be defined in relation to Net Market Position (NMP) or Absolute Market Position (AMP) of a household either from agricultural outputs or inputs side
Summary
The historical developments of organized seed sector were summarized in Ethiopia (Bishaw and Atilaw, 2016). These development paths are highly linked to the formal, intermediate and informal seed systems, where for some crops, the formal seed system plays crucial role while for others the informal seed system dominates which translates to the difference of the performance in terms of adoption, yield gaps and diversity of actors engaged. The productivity is low owing to low yield potential of land races and their susceptibility to diseases and pests, and poor cultural practices To address these constraints, tremendous efforts have been made to develop improved technologies including new varieties and associated crop management practices. 12 desi and 11 kabuli improved chickpea varieties were released by NARS in collaboration with CG centers such as ICARDA and ICRISAT (MoANR, 2016)
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