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