Farmers also cultivate chickpea in Southern and Eastern Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Australia. The small-seeded desi types, which account for about 85 percent of world production, are grown in the Indian subcontinent, Ethiopia, Australia, Mexico, Afghanistan, and Iran. Some farmers in the Mediterranean, Mexico, and India plant the large-seeded kabuli types. In the tropics and sub-tropics with summer rainfall, chickpea is mostly grown on residual soil moisture or sometimes under irrigation. In the sub-tropics with winter rainfall, farmers generally sow the crop during the spring.
Chickpeas usually receive few inputs other than labor, insecticides, and seed.
The major constraints to production include disease susceptibility of local varieties, environmental stresses, drought, diseases, pests, and poor crop management. In 1994, world production was 7.9 million tons from 10.2 million hectares, of which 97 percent was from developing countries. For the 1992 to 1994 three-year production average, Asia accounted for 76 percent of production, Africa 3 percent, and Latin America and the Caribbean each for 3 percent. Yields have shown a steady increase of about 0.5 percent annually over the past two decades. People use the seeds whole, dehulled, or as flour.