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The chickpea or chick pea (Cicer arietinum) is a legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. It is also known as gram, or Bengal gram, garbanzo or garbanzo bean and sometimes known as Egyptian pea, ceci, cece or chana. Its seeds are high in protein.Pulses farmers in Tanzania grow a range of crops, including pigeon pea, chickpea, cow pea, green gram, and common beans. Pulses take up 12% of the perennial crops production in Tanzania and are an important subsistence and cash crop for the mainly small-scale farmers.
Tanzania is a small player in the global pulses sector. Main exporters are Canada, Myanmar, USA, China, and Argentina (ITC, 2016). The timing of the harvest makes Tanzania and other East-African countries strategic suppliers of India during a particular period of the year. Other important producers in the region are Kenya, Malawi (both pigeon peas) and Ethiopia (chickpeas).