Oral Presentation 18 by Dawit Alemu at the International Conference on Pulses in Marrakesh, Morocco, 18-20 April 2016

1. Varietal and seed use of faba bean in Ethiopia:
implication of the national seed system
Dawit Alemu, PhD
Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR)
Zewdie Bishaw, PhD
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)
International Conference on Pulses for Health, Nutrition and
Sustainable Agriculture in Drylands
Marakesh, Morocco, 17-21 April, 2016

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Introduction
• Important role of agriculture in the economic transformation agenda
in the country
• Use of improved agricultural technologies considered as an important
intervention to transform agricultural sector,
• Considerable public investment in agricultural research and
development; as a result the sector has demonstrated 7% annual
growth on average (MoFED, 2014)
• Pulses play important role with 12.4% share from the total land
cultivated and 9.88% from the total grain production (CSA, 2015);
• Faba bean contributed 28.43% of the total pulse area and 31.40% of
total pulse production in 2014 production season ;
• Faba bean plays crucial role in highland production system as a
rotation crop, for domestic consumption and in recent years as a cash
crop for export

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Introduction 
• In 2014, about 3.8 million farmers were engaged in faba
bean production covering 443 thousand ha with estimated
average productivity level of 1.893 tons/ha (CSA, 2015),
one of the lowest in the world.
• This presentation is about understanding of the varietal
and seed use of faba bean among smallholder farmers;
• It covers the following issues:
1. an overview of the importance of faba beans and yield gaps,
2. how the seed system of faba bean operates,
3. what are the varietal adoption of improved faba bean
varieties
4. What needs to be done to improve the seed system for
enhanced adoption

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Methods
• Sampling and sample size
▫ The study was conducted in four major faba bean producing regions.
▫ Based on the importance of faba bean production, 6 zones namely
West Shewa, North Shewa, Arsi, West Arsi, Bale, and South West
Shewa from Oromia; four zones namely North Gondar, South Wolo,
North Shewa, and East Gojjam from Amhara; two zones namely East
and South Tigray from Tigray; and one zone namely Gurage zone
from SNNPR were selectedAnalysis methods,
▫ Using the same approach (proportion to total production), a total of
370 faba beans producing farmers were randomly selected from 19
districts in 13 zones in the four regions
• Data analysis
▫ The collected primary and secondary data were narrated using
descriptive statistics and appropriate methods to estimate adoption
rates

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Methods – Sample distribution 

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Importance of faba bean production
• The production and productivity levels of faba bean at
national level has demonstrated gradual increases, along
with slight increase in area coverage and number of
farmers;
• The land allocated has increased from 0.38 million ha in
2004 to 0.54 million ha in 2014
• Yields also increased over the same period from national
average of 1.118 tons/ha to 1.842 tons/ha;
• The total number of farmers involved in faba bean
production has increased from 2.9 million in 2004 to 4.37
million farmers in 2014;
• As a result, total production has increased from 0.427
million tons in 2004 to 0.992 million tons in 2014

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Importance of faba bean 
y = 0.6498x + 9.7947
R² = 0.8196
-
2.00
4.00
6.00
8.00
10.00
12.00
14.00
16.00
18.00
20.00
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
No of farmers (million)
Area in hectare (100,000)
Production in quintal (Million)
Yield (quintal / hectare)
Linear (Yield (quintal / hectare))
Figure 2 Trends in faba bean production and productivity (2004 – 2014)
Source: CSA (2004 – 2014)

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Importance of faba bean 
• In recent years, faba beans are also contributing to the
economy through generation of foreign currency,
• They are mainly exported to neighboring countries like
Djibouti, Sudan, and Somalia and to Arab countries
Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and
Kuwait;
• The volume and value of faba bean export have
increased from less than hundred thousand quintals
with average value of less than seven million USD a
decade ago to about 400 thousand quintals with a
value of about close to 20 million USD in 2014

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Importance of faba bean 
(5.00)
-
5.00
10.00
15.00
20.00
25.00
30.00
35.00
(100,000.00)
-
100,000.00
200,000.00
300,000.00
400,000.00
500,000.00
600,000.00
Exportedvalue(MillionUSD)
Exportedanoutinqtls
Amount (qtls)
FOB in Million USD
Trends in export of faba bean (1997 – 2014)

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Importance of faba beans at household level
• farmers on average allocated 0.33 ha of land, which is on
average 20.3% of the total land cultivated
Indicator Average
Standard
Deviations
Size of land allocated (ha) 0.33 0.25
Proportion of cultivated
land (%)
20.30 14.26
No of observations 369

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Faba bean varieties and seed source
• In total, 31 varieties of faba bean are released for use in
the country since the first release of CS-20-DK in 1977 by
Holeta research center;
• Among the 31 released varieties, basic seed produced in
2014 production season was only for 10 varieties;
• Of the total 112.7 tons of basic seed produced for the 10
faba bean varieties, about 85% was for CS20DK by the
Ethiopian Seed Enterprise;
• This obviously indicates the limited availability of source
seed for production of certified seed

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Faba bean varieties and seed source
• The trend in demand and supply of seed of the different
faba bean varieties indicates a huge gap in the supply
Year Demand Supply Distributed
% distributed of
demand
2009 17,524 2,265 2,265 12.93
2010 24,192 3,669 3,028 12.52
2011 35,381 6,186 6,072 17.16
2012 49,854 29,936 28,330 56.83
2013 273,382 29,775 29,837 10.55
2014 57,517 26,381 20,429 35.52
Faba bean seed demand, supply and use in quintals (2009 - 2014)

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Role of improved varieties of faba bean:
productivity gaps
• The national productivity of faba bean over the last 10
years ranged from 11.18 quintals/ha to 18.42 quintals/ha,
• Released varieties under research field have the potential
yield ranging from 23 to 50 quintals/ha,
• from 20 to 44 quintals/ha under farmers’ field with
research recommended practices and
• from 18 to 20 quintals/ha under farmers’ field with
farmers’ practices.
• These clearly indicate the potential to increase faba beans
production in the country through better use of improved
varieties along with recommended agronomic practices

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Productivity gaps
Category
Yield range
(quintals/ha)
Use of improved varieties
and practices
Source
Research field
23 – 50
(36)
 Improved variety
 recommended practices,
and
 researcher managed
MoA, 2014
Farmers’ field
with research
recommended
practice
20 – 44
(32)
 Improved variety
 Recommended practices,
and
 Farmer managed
MoA, 2014
Farmers’ field
under farmers’
practice
18 – 20
(19)
 Improved variety
 Farmers’ practices
 Farmer managed
Kibebew Assefa
et al., 2011
National yield
level
11.18 -18.42
(15)
National production system CSA (2004 – 2014)

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Adoption of improved food barley varieties by
season and source
• The adoption rates of improved faba bean varieties are
estimated considering plot level information based on number
of plots and size of land allocated and also at household
levels;
• The adoption rate based on number of plots allocated with
improved varieties estimated at 18.93%, based on the
proportion of land allocated with improved variety is
estimated at 22.38%;
• This indicates that plots allocated with improved varieties are
on average larger than with local varieties;
• The data also confirms a statistically significant difference
where the average size of plots allocated with improved
varieties is 0.37 ha whereas plots with local varieties are 0.3
ha.

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Adoption of improved food barley varieties by
season and source
Methods Category Estimates (%) Faba bean varieties
Area
Non - adopters 77.62 Local
Adopters 22.38
CS - 20 – DK
Degaga
Gabelcho
Moti
Kassa
Shallo
Other Improved
Plots
Non - adopters 81.07 Local
Adopters 18.93
CS - 20 - DK
Degaga
Gabelcho
Moti
Kassa
Shallo
Other Improved

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Adoption rate of faba beans producing
households and participation in seed sale
• Information at household level is more important than plot level for
policy and development efforts as farming households are the decision
making units and point of interventions
• The adoption rate at household level indicate that 25.9% of the farmers
are full adopters, 1.6% partial adopters and the rest 72.4% were non-
adopters;
Adoption type
Estimate adoption rate
(%)
Households involved in
sale of seed (%)
Non-adopters 72.40 10.30
Full adopters 25.90 5.70
Partial adopters 1.60 0.50

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Source of seed by type of faba bean variety

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Patterns in faba beans seed renewal by adoption
category
• Seed renewal pattern varies by adoption category.
• From the 72.4% of non-adopters of improved variety of faba beans,
▫ 50% of them reported that they do not renew their seed stock and the
▫ the rest 22.4% reported renewing their seed stock through purchase of
non-certified seed.
• From the 25.9% full adopters,
– 11.1% of them reported that they do not renew their seed stock,
– 5.9% renew using both certified and non-certified seeds,
– 5.4% renew through purchase of non-certified seed, and
– the rest 3.5% reported renewal using certified seed.
• The difference in the average seed renewal rate by adoption category was
not statistically significant indicating the average year of renewal on average
after every two years for all categories of adoption.

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Conclusions
• Faba bean is a very important pulse crop in the highlands
of Ethiopia;
• Its importance is growing given its role in highland
production system as a rotation crop, for domestic
consumption and in recent years as a cash crop for export
given the increasing demand from neighboring countries;
• At national level, yields and total production have
demonstrated increasing trend in the last decade;
• However, the yield gap between yields achieved at
research station and farmers’ fields is very huge;
• There are 31 varieties released that are reported to
perform better in many attributes;

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Conclusions 
• There is huge gap between revealed demand and supply, which
ranges from about 13% to about 57% of the demand in the last
decade;
• Adoption of improved faba bean varieties is very low, where
72.4% of the farmers were non-adopters, 1.6% partial adopters
(one or more of the faba bean plots were covered with
improved varieties), and 25.9% were full adopters;
• Only 6.26% of the land allocated for faba beans was covered
with certified seed;
• From the 25.9% full adopters, 11.1% reported renewal of seed
stock, 5.9% renew using both certified and non-certified seeds,
5.4% renew through purchase of non-certified seed, and the
rest 3.5% reported renewal using certified seed ;

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Conclusions 
• These findings imply the need:
• to narrow the yield gap through improved
access to available improved varieties;
• To enhance the engagement of public seed
enterprises and farmers’ organizations
(Coops) to close the gap between demand and
supply for seed;
• To strengthen the linkage between the formal
and informal seed systems given the current
important role of the informal seed system,