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Proceedingsof the Workshop on Ascochyta Blight and Winter Sowing of Chichkpeas (Saxena, M.C<br />
and Singh, K.B., eds.), ICARDA, 4-7 May 1981, Aleppo, Syria<br />
Socioeconomic Implications of<br />
Winter Chickpea Production<br />
D.F. NYGAARD<br />
Program Leader/Economist, Farming Systems Program, ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria.<br />
Seldom has a technological ohange been developed that so clearly improves the<br />
production potential of a specific crop. Chickpeas that are resistant to ascochyta<br />
blight and thus can be planted in November rather than February or March have<br />
shown very large yield increases indeed. This potential has been clearly illustrated<br />
in several of the previous papers.<br />
It is unlikely the increased costs or other socioeconomic phenomena would<br />
detract from the attractivness of such a large productivity gain. Nevertheless, we<br />
now need to test this new technique under farm conditions, i.e., on farmers' fields<br />
with the farmer in control of the production process. These tests will allow us to<br />
confirm or refute the hypothesis that the new cultivars and new planting date are<br />
economically beneficial to the producers. They will also allow us to measure the<br />
economic gain.<br />
Partial budgeting is the proper economic tool to use to test this ilypothesis.<br />
Budgets are constructed that include only the changes in costs of production<br />
(thus the use of the word partial) that accrue with the introduction of the new<br />
technique. Then, the two partial Hdgets, one for the old method and one for the<br />
new, are compared and economic gains can be calculated.<br />
Such budgets were hypothetically constructed for Syria to show the major<br />
areas where increases in cost will occur if the new technique is adopted. The<br />
actual partial budget for the winter-planted chickpeas must wait until these costs<br />
can be measured under farmers' conditions. Yet, the hypothetical case gives us<br />
some useful insights.<br />
First, due to the size of the yield increase, almost all production costs increase.<br />
For example, harvesting and marketing costs increase since a higher yield requires<br />
more labor for harvesting and threshing the crop, more bags are needed<br />
and the transport of the increased production is greater. However, these increases<br />
will, most certainly, not be high enough to affect greatly the attractiveness<br />
of using the new cultivars planted at a different date.<br />
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