Pigeon Pea Set to Transform Livelihoods in Rural Tanzania
The Regional Director of the international crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRASAT, Dr Said Silim has called on the governments in the Eastern and Southern Africa to put systems in place that would access dryland seeds to farmers faster.
Addressing farmers, researchers and a team of the Eastern Africa Press in Babati, Manyara region, Tanzania, Dr Slim said that while research centres have come up with appropriate seed traits that meets the needs of farmers, “it was imperative that these seeds was accessible and the governments ought to put machinery in place for this to be achieved.
This he said would need governments to work in close partnerships with the private sector which would be able to multiply the seeds research, put up marketing groups to buy grains that would offer better prices to farmers.
Currently, efforts are being made through some 2000 germplasm in Kenya, Tanzania, Monzambique, Uganda and Malawi to help fight Fuserium wilt a fungal disease that attacks the plant through the roots, causing the crop to wilt, that greatly affects the pigeon pea market, worth 30, 000 tonnes a year.
Besides, researchers at the India-based ICRISAT with a regional office in Nairobi are also working on varieties that are drought-tolerant, high yielding and early maturing.
According to Dr Silim, current efforts towards improving varieties are helping farmers in Babati region, whose Babati White, a traditional pigeon pea variety is best in the world but had been decimated by the fungal disease to have hope again.
Currently, ICRISAT is promoting use of Pigeon pea varieties 40 and 53, which have been developed with resistance to Fuserium Wilt in Babati, a region with highest production of pigeon pea in the Eastern Africa region.
Pigeon Pea, is a dry land crop that requires a rainfall of between 400- 1000 millimeters with varied temperatures growing from the 0 meters above sea level to 1600 meters with the high altitudes requiring long duration varieties which could take as long as 10 months.
Dr Silim says that unlike the traditional varieties that dry up in poor rainfall years, the 40 and 53 varieties however have been developed with plasticity traits that allow the crop to mature early in bad years or normal in good rainfall years thus giving a farmer yields once planted.
He adds that the institute in collaboration with the region’s national agricultural institutes is working on separate national needs as demanded by both farmers and consumer markets.
For example he said that in Kenya, ICRISAT is focusing on drought-tolerance and tastes which is determined by the appeal to eye, aroma and how fast it cooks.
Globally, cultivation of the crop has grown in area covered by 43 percent increase since 1970 to the current 4.3m ha, but demand still outstrips supply.
The crop grows in some 50 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas, mostly as an intercrop with cereals. The bulk of the world’s production (90 percent) is grown in Asia; India is the largest producer with 3.2 m ha under this crop, followed by Myanmar (580,000 ha), China (60,000 ha) and Nepal (28,000 ha).
India is the largest producer, consumer and importer of the pigeon pea, although the growing vegetarian population in developed countries is expanding markets.
The biggest exporters in Africa are Tanzania, Malawi, and Kenya; Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in Central America are other important exporters
According to Dr Philemon Mushi, a socio-economist at the Selian Agricultural Institute, SARI, Arusha, the thousands of small scale farmers, farming on an average acreage of 3-4 hectares still face the problem of middlemen who are exploitative.
He says that whereas the international market buys the pigeon pea at a kilogram, not so the brokers. They insist on buying the crop per sack usually at around Tanzania Shillings 30-40, 000 (about USD 35 a sack).
To go round the problem, the SARI is working closely with the Catholic Relief Services to help bring farmers together in cooperative societies with the aim of pooling resources that would empower farmers beat middlemen to markets.
