Four Seasons of Learning and Engaging Smallholder Farmers - icrisat

100
Million hectares
80
60
40
20
0
70-79 80-89 90-99 00-09
Beans, dry
Cow peas, dry
Soybeans
Chick peas
Groundnuts, with shell
Source: Authors using FAO data
Figure 5-2: Global trends in area under major legumes, 1970-2009
Relative to the other regions, the West African region has also seen appreciable changes in the area
planted to cowpea in the last four decades. With an increase of 5 million hectares in area planted
to cowpea, the West African region registered the highest area growth in the world. It is distantly
followed by the East African region where areas increased by 0.3 million. With area increase of 3
million hectares, Niger’s area expansion dwarfed not only the other West African major world cowpea
producers (Nigeria and Burkina Faso), it was also larger than total area increases in other individual
countries and continents.
Nigeria and Burkina Faso saw area increases of 1.2 million ha and 0.4 million ha, respectively, and
together with Niger made the West African the region where cowpea area expansion was the greatest.
Cowpea area expansion in Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Niger may be attributed to the need for more
production to meet the growing regional demand fuelled by growing incomes and population especially
in Nigeria and partly Ghana, in the absence of real changes in technical progress and productivity.
Yield
World cowpea yields have generally been low compared to potential yields and below 1 tMT per
hectare although there has been an increase from around 0.3 MT per hectare in the 1970s to about 0.45
tonnes per hectare in the 2000s (see Figure 5-1). However, wide disparities exist across continents and
sub-regions with yields ranging from 0.4 MT in West Africa to 3 MT per hectare in Europe in the 2000s.
In the last 4 decades, the yields in West Africa have mostly been below those in other parts of globe.
Because West Africa accounts for about 90% of global area cultivated, average global yields reflect
its relatively low yield. The highest yield in Africa is observed in North Africa at .9 tonnes/ha. North
America (the United States in particular) has a yield of 1.5 tonnes/ha. Although West Africa dominates
in terms of area cultivated, it clearly lags behind in terms of productivity. In Asia the yield is also higher
than that of West Africa at 1.5 tonnes/ha. Although Europe, North America and Asia have higher yields,
they account for less than 2% of global area cultivated.
Figure 5-3 shows that Nigeria made some progress in increasing its cowpea yields from 0.2 MT per
ha in 1970 to 0.9 MT per ha in 2009. In contrast, Niger has made much slower progress with its yield
increasing from 0.1 MT per ha in 1970 to 0.3 MT per ha by 2009. In fact, since 1970, Niger’s yields
have fluctuated between 0.1 MT per ha and 0.3 MT per ha with the latter being experienced in six years
only in the last four decades. Thus, Nigeria increased its yield by 0.7 MT per ha while Niger increased
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Engaging Smallholder Farmers | Tropical Legumes II Project