Mung bean is an eco-friendly food grain leguminous crop of dry land agriculture with a wealthy basis of proteins, vitamins, and minerals. It is a quick crop, requiring 75–90 days to mature. It is a useful crop in drier areas and has a good potential for crop rotation and relay cropping with cereals using residual moisture. Mung bean can provide significant amounts of protein (240 g/kg), and carbohydrate (630 g/kg) range of micronutrients in diets. Mung bean protein and carbohydrates are easily digested and create less flatulence than those derived from other legumes.
Mung bean is the sixth product that the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange is trading next to coffee, sesame, white pea beans, maize, and wheat. Ethiopia’s mung bean export has grown slightly from time to time in the Ethiopian commodity exchange (ECX, 2014). But supply is limited in Ethiopia since the production of mung bean is very low due to different factors.
From different mung bean varieties cultivated in Ethiopia Shewa Robit, Boreda, Arkebe, and N-26 varieties, the Arkebe variety was recommended for our farm and has been in cultivation for the last couple of years. Shewa Robit variety had a higher grain yield (1607.4 kg ha-1) followed by N-26 (1542 kg ha-1) in some areas and there is a plan to try these varieties in the following seasons.
