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Regional opportunities for cool season food legumes for sustainable and enhanced food production, and crop diversification in the Indo-Gangetic Plain

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/3466/
 
Title Regional opportunities for cool season food legumes for sustainable and enhanced food production, and crop diversification in the Indo-Gangetic Plain
 
Creator Saxena, N P
Erskine, W
Kumar, J
Johansen, C
 
Subject Food legumes
 
Description Cool season food legumes (CSFL), mainly chickpea, lentil, khesari
(lathyrus), faba bean, and pea, are important constituents of the diet of
the people of the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP). In the traditional
agricultural production systems of this ecoregion, these legumes were
important crops. However, the area and production of CSFL in the IGP
has decreased over the past two decades. Regional production is
inadequate to meet regional demand, which increasingly has to be
supplemented through imports. Large increase in demand of CSFL is
projected in these countries over the coming decade.
Major reasons for the decrease in area and production of CSFL arc
preference of farmers to grow input-responsive, and more profitable rice
and wheat crops and their reluctance to grow CSFL because of the
uncertain yield that they can expect to harvest. Uncertainty in yield is
associated with aberrant climatic conditions, and related pest and
disease incidence.
Technology and/or components of technology, effective in alleviating the
major abiotic and biotic constraints to CSFL production, are readily
available from the published literature. However, these have by and large
not reached farmers. With widespread adoption of improved technologies,
higher yields could more reliably be harvested. This would further
motivate farmers to expand area under these crops because CSFL
production would be perceived as less risk-prone and quite profitable.
Additional benefits would accrue from greater sustainability of the production systems into which these crops are introduced. Institutional
support (incentives and farmer-friendly policy) that would ensure
dependable income to farmers will be necessary for rapid adoption of new
technologies. It is suggested that short-term, focused research and
development projects could quickly result in greater availability of these
pulses and reverse the declining trends in area under these crops.
 
Publisher International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
 
Contributor Johansen, C
Duxbury, J M
Virmani, S M
Gowda, C L L
Pande, S
Joshi, P K
 
Date 2000
 
Type Book Section
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/3466/1/RegionalOpportunitiesForCool200-218.pdf
Saxena, N P and Erskine, W and Kumar, J and Johansen, C (2000) Regional opportunities for cool season food legumes for sustainable and enhanced food production, and crop diversification in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. In: Legumes in rice and wheat cropping systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plain - constraints and opportunities. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India, pp. 200-218. ISBN 92-9066-418-5