Cowpea Production, Marketing and Utilization in Ethiopia (original) (raw)

Ethiopia is the origin of a number of food crops. Some of them are performing well under the ongoing climate change. Cowpea is one of a few crops in this aspect. Historically cowpea has secondary origin in Ethiopia. In this paper, we report on this dryland leguminous crop production-cum-utilization, which received a meager research and development attention in the country. Data employed in this paper came from large cowpea growing households across the crop growing areas in Ethiopia. The information included socioeconomic aspects and seeds collection from land races and new varieties. The seeds collected were maintained as germplasm resources for the crop improvement. The information included in this paper is deemed useful in the research and development of cowpea-a crop of multiple benefits. The paper touches the production to consumption continuum, the information included can be utilized by people across wide disciplines involved in research and development. Likewise, the paper highlights on cowpea producer households' members participation in terms of gender roles and benefit sharing in cowpea production, storage, marketing, and utilization in the crop values chain understanding. The authors are grateful to the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research for hosting this work and facilitating the field survey and report writing. Our special thanks go to farmers and local Agricultural Development Agents for their cooperation in the data collection. The authors are indebted to Mr Yohannes Fekadu for his help in software data management and analysis.

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