Improving Production and Productivity of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Through Scaling-up of Improved Technologies in the Vertisol Highland Areas of Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Chickpea seed supply is limited for a local level farmer to the farmer seed exchange systems. The scale-up was conducted in the vertisol potential areas of North Shewa Zone of Amhara Region to create wider demand for improved chickpea varieties, strengthen the linkage among the possible actors and enhancing technology multiplication and dissemination to improve its productivity. Methods: Naatolii, Mastewal, Arerti and Habru improved chickpea varieties were introduced and more than 393ha of land was covered and about 826 farmers were accessed through delivering more than 49.3 tons of improved seed. Result: The productivity of chickpea in the area was boosted to 2.61tons ha-1 and yield advantage of 73% to 97.7% was obtained from improved varieties compared to the local cultivar. As a result of this intervention, many farmers benefited easy access to improved seeds of different chickpea varieties through direct seed marketing and farmer to farmer seed exchange.