Determining the productivity of irrigation water in Fomanat area of ??Gilan province

Academic Thesis for Master's Degree

Field: Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural Management Orientation

Abstract

In Iran, the agricultural sector is the biggest water user. The low relative input price of irrigation water used in the mentioned sector causes the lack of proper investment in water collection technologies and its waste up to more than 80%. One of the important issues of the water sector is the unjustified low price or tariff of agricultural water. The present research for the first time, by accurately measuring the amount of irrigation water consumed in the paddy fields of the Fomanat irrigation area in Gilan province, considered the suitability of different forms of production function and the selection of the best form in order to estimate the economic price of irrigation water. The data used were obtained from 110 paddy fields in Fomanat district in the crop year of 2011-2019. According to the results of the research, the transcendental functional form was recognized as the best form of the production function, and the shadow price of irrigation water was determined based on it equal to 9272 rials.

Key words: shadow price, final productivity value, Fomanat field, economic value of water Irrigation

- Introduction

In recent years, population growth, climate change and the phenomenon of industrialization have limited water resources. The agricultural sector is the largest water consumer and has the lowest water consumption efficiency. Therefore, in recent years, extensive efforts have been made to estimate the economic value of water consumption in the agricultural sector in order to improve development planning. In this chapter, firstly, the problem considered in the present research is stated, then the variables of the research, the characteristics of the studied area, and the methods and tools used are introduced. Also, the necessity of the research, the goals and hypotheses of the research are presented to the interpretation and finally the definition of the specific concepts and vocabulary of the research is developed. Therefore, water resources management is considered one of the priorities of political programs in the country. Management of water resources, as the most important renewable but limited natural resource, is one of the most important challenges of the current century and has caused major global concerns (Liner [1], 2009). Water resources are exposed to increasing stress caused by the mutual effects of population growth, economic development, climatic diversity and heterogeneous temporal and spatial distribution of water resources, climate change and ecosystem protection (Wada[2], 2010). These cases cause serious issues such as poverty, disrupting the process of sustainable socio-economic growth and development, threatening global food production and instability of natural resources (Angles [3], 2011).

Agriculture, with 85% of global water consumption as the largest consumer of this resource, plays an important role in balancing the amount of water between competing uses (Pongkiurasin[4], 2007). In the coming decades, more than two-thirds of the growing supply of food needed by the growing world population will be provided by irrigation-based agriculture (Al-Jaidi[5], 2009). And it is predicted that the demand for agricultural water will double in 2050 (Pfister et al.[6], 2011).

Achieving self-sufficiency in the production of agricultural products has been on the agenda of the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad for many years. But the factor that challenges the realization of this goal is the limitation of resources and the lack of sufficient funds inside the country, which inevitably leads the practitioners and researchers to the methods of optimal and economical use of production resources. Emphasis on productivity in the use of available resources and allocation of resources and funds to uses that create maximum efficiency are the principles that everyone agrees on. In this regard, water is of great importance as the most limiting factor of production in agriculture, and planning for its proper allocation in such a way that the maximum efficiency in the production of agricultural products is created and at the same time the well-being of future generations and the environment is maintained is very important.. In fact, the increasing demand for water resources and the limitation of the country's water resources increase the gap between water supply and demand day by day, and today, the limitation of water resources determines the pattern of cultivation, and in this regard, one of the most effective ways to achieve self-sufficiency, more domestic production, and greater productivity is the appropriate allocation of water based on economic criteria. From Pareto's point of view, the allocation of production resources will be economically optimal when it is not possible to increase the utility or economic efficiency in any of the operations by re-allocating it. In this regard, various economic criteria and tools can represent the economic and physical efficiency of inputs among different exploitations and crops, the most important of which is the economic value. In fact, the comparison of the economic value between different agricultural products shows how much the current allocation pattern is in line with economic principles.

The debates and studies that have been conducted around the issue of water as one of the most central components of sustainable development, blame the weak, inefficient and unstable management of water and not the actual physical limitations of supply as responsible for today's challenges (Stratton [7], 2008), so that many problems are solved by efficient and sustainable water management. Irrigation can be managed, which requires the protection of water resources and increasing the producer's net income (OECD, 2009). The World Bank and other related organizations recognize the assessment of demand as the central core of the process of dealing with the aforementioned crises, and an estimate of the nature of demand is a prerequisite for the sustainable design of projects and programs and guiding investment decisions in the water sector (Darden [8], 1998). Therefore, extracting the irrigation water demand function and determining the economic value and productivity of this scarce input is the first step in designing an optimal exploitation strategy.

Fomnat irrigation area in the Sefidroud irrigation and drainage network consists of five construction units that cover 49.66 thousand hectares of agricultural land. According to the latest available information, the share of different crops in the cultivation pattern of this irrigation area is high-quality long-grain rice with 88.73%, high-yielding long-grain rice with 9.56% and other crops with 1.71%. Long grain rice cultivars with 29.98% of the cultivated area are the dominant crops in this irrigation area. On the other hand, the total gross profit of agriculture in Fomanat irrigation area is estimated based on the monetary values ??of the agricultural period of 2019-2019 equivalent to 0.96 thousand billion rials. Irrigation water supply in this area is provided by four main sources including Sefidroud irrigation network, local rivers and streams, drains, dams and underground sources. Considering the consumption of irrigation water amounting to 487 million cubic meters in this irrigation area, the share of each of the above four sources in providing irrigation water is equal to 60.06, 31.08, 2.24 and 6.62%, respectively. Extracting the irrigation water demand function, determining the economic value and productivity of this input in the study area has a significant role in improving the water resource management policies in the lands downstream of the Sefidroud dam and network. rtl;">The necessity of adjusting the pricing policies and determining the irrigation water tariff based on economic value.

Providing a suitable perspective to estimate the lost economic benefits due to changing the conditions of irrigation water allocation.