I - --ii

planting of chickpeas apparently offers tremendous potential for such improvement.
The next step, i.e. on farm, farmer-managed trials should be taken quickly.
Discussion
M.C. Saxena
I would like to know the basis of your taking a yield level of 1300 kg/ha for
farmer's yield in your partial budgeting.
D. Nygaard
Purely hypothetical to show you the value of partial budgeting. You could
have a case where yield increases are more than offset by increased costs and
the farmer would not switch to the new technique.
M.C. Saxena
Much of the weeds in the winter crops are used by small farmers for animal
fed. Will this not, therefore, have compensatory effect in terms of cost of
production of winter chickpea?
D. Nygaard
In Syria this is not a big problem because farmers keep their fields very clean
during the winter months before they plant chickpeas. It may be more important
in a country like Tunisia.
Ii. Harris
Do you have any estimate of the opportunity cost of reduced winter grazing on
chickpea land which might result from winter sowings?
D. Nygaard
No numbers but it is avalid point. Fields in Syria are kept relatively weed free
so this is not such an important issue as it may be in other countries, for
example, Tunisia.
G.C. Hawtin
It may be possible to graze the winter crop and still get a yield advantage over
the spring crop. This needs to be looked into further. Farmers in zone 2 are
generally poorer and have a limited range of crop to choose from. In zone 1,
chickpeas are just one of many alternatives. Over the past few years chickpeas
have been spreading into drier areas anyway as a result of the high prices.
Would it not be better to concentrate on zone 2, rather than zone I in considering
winter chickpeas?
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