New Policies are Needed to Encourage Improvements in Irrigation Management
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 130, Issue 5
Abstract
Innovations are needed in both the technological and policy dimensions of water resource management to achieve the gains in productivity required to feed the world’s increasing population. Scientists and engineers will continue to discover and disseminate new information regarding the technology of water management. However, the effective demand for that information at the farm level will be limited in areas where water prices and allocations do not reflect scarcity conditions. This paper describes how public policies regarding water resources and agricultural production can motivate farmers to consider scarcity values and the off-farm impacts of irrigation and drainage activities. Farm-level and regional models of crop production are examined, and optimizing criteria derived from the models depict the role of scarcity values and policy parameters in farm-level decisions regarding water use. The rate at which improvements in water management are implemented by irrigators around the world might be enhanced substantially by replacing inappropriate policies with those that motivate farmers and others to use scarce resources efficiently.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 130 • Issue 5 • October 2004
Pages: 366 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 ASCE.
History
Published online: Oct 1, 2004
Published in print: Oct 2004
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