ICARDA annual report 2004

ICARDA Annual Report 2004
58
Socioeconomics
and Policy
Project 4.1.
Socioeconomics of Natural Resource
Management in Dry Areas
I
n order to maintain and improve the livelihoods and welfare of
CWANA’s rural poor, the fragile natural resource base that
supports the region’s agriculture must be preserved. In 2004,
ICARDA focused on improving water-use efficiency at the farm
level. Researchers used models to identify the economic and technical
factors that determine how farmers allocate water among
different crops. They also developed methods for measuring irrigation-water-use
efficiency—an indicator of over- or under-irrigation.
In six locations in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, it was found that
farmers consistently applied more irrigation water than necessary,
implying that water savings of up to 66% could be made.
Assessing on-farm wateruse
efficiency
In the dry areas of West Asia and
North Africa (WANA), scarce
water resources are often poorly
managed and inefficiently used,
especially in agriculture. Because
irrigation accounts for 80–90% of all
water consumed in WANA,
ICARDA and the United Nations
Economic and Social Commission
for West Asia (ESCWA) are working
to measure and improve onfarm
water-use efficiency.
Simple, ‘technical’ measures of
water-use efficiency, such as crop
yield per unit of water applied, do
not reflect the economic efficiency
of water use, as this also depends
on crop and water prices, and the
prices of other inputs. They also do
not reflect the complex decisions
Theme 4
farmers make when allocating a
fixed amount of water among their
different crops. To take account of
all these factors, researchers
assessed farm-level water-use efficiency
(FWUE) – the ratio of the
required amount of water for a target
production level to the actual
amount of water used.
Farm surveys were conducted at
six locations in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan,
and Syria between 1999 and 2002.
Data, such as the area planted to
each crop, the irrigation technology
used, the amount of water available
per farm, and the prices of water
and other inputs (e.g. labor, fertilizer,
and pesticides), were then used
to model on-farm water use.
Researchers developed and validated
three types of model: a fixedallocatable
input model, a variable
input model, and a behavioral
model. These were used to (i) identify
the most important factors
influencing farmers’ decisions to
allocate irrigation water to different
crops, and (ii) calculate the estimated
water requirement to allow
researchers to calculate the FWUE
for each farm.
Researchers found that farmers
over-irrigated their crops in all the
areas studied. Wheat, for example,
was given 20-70% more water than
necessary (Fig. 27), as FWUE values
ranged from 0.3 to 0.8 kg/m 3.
Correcting this would save an enormous
amount of water, which
could be used to irrigate more land.
Alternatively, farmers could greatly
increase their wheat yields per
hectare simply by using the same
amount of water in conjunction
with improved water- and cropmanagement
practices. Either
option would contribute greatly to
food security in WANA.
The study also showed that some
crops had a higher FWUE than
wheat, so water could be saved by
changing the mix of crops grown. In
Beni Sweif in Egypt, and Radwania
in Syria, for example, the FWUE of
cotton (0.75 kg/m 3) was higher than
that of the other crops grown in
those areas. However, cotton farmers
still exceeded crop water require-
Fig. 27. On-farm
water-use efficiency
(FWUE) for
wheat in Rabea,
Iraq; Radwania,
Syria; Al Ghor,
Jordan; Beni Sweif
and Nubaria,
Egypt; and
Nineveh, Iraq.