Abstract
Chickpea is a nutrition-rich, cropping-system friendly, climate-resilient, and low-cost production crop. It has large economic potential in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region, where it currently accounts for only approximately half a million hectares of the approximately 12 million hectares of total chickpea production land worldwide. This review highlights the opportunities for promoting chickpea production and marketing to tap the vast economic potential in SSA. The region can potentially produce chickpea on approximately 10 million hectares, possibly doubling the global production, and the region could become one of the highest consumption geographies of this healthy crop. Chickpea could easily be integrated into existing cropping systems including rice-fallows and cereal monocropping systems. Successful cases studies of the crop in the region are highlighted. The region could tap into the potential at scale through intervention in the agricultural policy environment and development and promotion of improved chickpea production technologies supported by well-organized extension services and sustainable seed systems. These interventions could be complemented with value addition and product quality improvementsÍ for SSA chickpea to benefit from high-value markets.
Highlights
Agriculture remains Africa’s biggest opportunity to drive economic growth and meet food demand for its growing population which faces persistent problems of food and nutrition insecurity [1].The continent is a net importer of agricultural products, where it spends approximately USD$ 60 billion on food imports annually to fill the deficit [2]
This paper aimed to review and highlight opportunities for promoting chickpea production and marketing to tap the vast economic potential in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
Chickpea has a huge potential to contribute to the economic development of SSA and benefit the value chain actors
Summary
Agriculture remains Africa’s biggest opportunity to drive economic growth and meet food demand for its growing population which faces persistent problems of food and nutrition insecurity [1]. The SSA region has a vast potential for agricultural development. An increase in agricultural production has been observed over the years, it has not kept up with the pace of population growth in the region [5]. Few SSA countries have invested in the agriculture sector reaching the 10% budget share set by CAADP and have achieved major agricultural transformation with a growth rate exceeding the CAADP target of 6% [6]. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), a highly nutritious, climate-resilient, environmentally friendly, and nitrogen-fixing crop with huge market opportunities, could be one of the crops with strategic relevance for the agricultural sector transformation and improving food and nutrition security, soil health, economic returns, and income stability in SSA.
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