2002, Volume 5, Paper 53
ISSN: 2209-6612

Chickpea Marketing in India: Challenges and Opportunities

Frank W. Agbola – School of Business and Economics, Monash University-South Africa Campus, Roodepoort, South Africa
Timothy G. Kelley – CGIAR Interim Science Council Secretariat, Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome, Italy
Martin J. Bent – Muresk Institute of Agriculture, Curtin University of Technology, Northam, Western Australia
P. Parthasarathy Rao – International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, A.P., India

Abstract

India’s food economy has undergone fundamental changes in the 1990s. As part of these reforms the chickpea industry is being transformed into a market-oriented sector through the process of liberalisation. Despite these reforms, the state governments in India government still levies whole chickpea export and the Government of India continues to set minimum price for chickpea and limit the volume of chickpea exports. These policy reforms are likely to impact on world chickpea trade. This study provides an overview of chickpea marketing in order to assess the potential problems and opportunities for increasing chickpea exports to India. The survey results suggest possible opportunities for expanding chickpea exports to India. It was found that the factors reshaping chickpea trade are the quality characteristics and purity standards of chickpea, government macroeconomic policy and chickpea supply and demand dynamics. The policy implications of the findings for Australia are discussed.

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