Download or read book Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior written by Wolfram Schlenker and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-11-13 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural yields have increased steadily in the last half century, particularly since the Green Revolution. At the same time, inflation-adjusted agricultural commodity prices have been trending downward as increases in supply outpace the growth of demand. Recent severe weather events, biofuel mandates, and a switch toward a more meat-heavy diet in emerging economies have nevertheless boosted commodity prices. Whether this is a temporary jump or the beginning of a longer-term trend is an open question. Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior examines the factors contributing to the remarkably steady increase in global yields and assesses whether yield growth can continue. This research also considers whether agricultural productivity growth has been, and will be, associated with significant environmental externalities. Among the topics studied are genetically modified crops; changing climatic factors; farm production responses to government regulations including crop insurance, transport subsidies, and electricity subsidies for groundwater extraction; and the role of specific farm practices such as crop diversification, disease management, and water-saving methods. This research provides new evidence that technological as well as policy choices influence agricultural productivity.

Download or read book Management of Water Use in Agriculture written by Kenneth K. Tanji and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the world population increases, there is increasing competition for waterquantity as well as quality. Provided here is an up-to-date perspective on Available Water Resources (Part I), Water Conservation and Technology inAgricultural Systems (Part II), Problem Water Uses and Treatment (Part III),and Management and Policy Evaluation (Part IV). The book is an invaluable source of information for water resource planners, managers and policy makers, researchers and students, and irrigationists.

Download or read book Micro Irrigation Systems in India written by P K Viswanathan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-19 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes stock of micro irrigation systems (MIS), the technological intervention in India’s agricultural and water management sectors, over the past couple of decades. Based on empirical research from the major agriculturally dynamic states, viz., Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the book provides a nuanced understanding and objective assessment of the implementation and adoption of MIS across these states. It addresses several of the questions related to adoption and impacts of MIS in India. On the adoption side, the key question that the book addresses is which segment of the farming community adopts MIS across states? The impacts analysed include those on physical, agronomic and economic aspects. At the macro level, the question being asked is about the future potential of MIS in terms of saving water from agriculture and making more water available for environment. The book also addresses the question of the positive/negative externalities and real social benefits and costs from the use of MIS, a major justification for heavy capital subsidies for its purchase by farmers. It also brings out certain critical concerns pertaining to MIS adoption, which need to be addressed through more empirical research based on longitudinal panel/ cross sectional data. The book would be of great use to researchers (agricultural water management, irrigation economics), students of water resource engineering, irrigation engineering and water resources management, as well as to policy makers and agricultural water management experts – national and international.

Download or read book Water Conservation Reuse and Recycling written by Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2005-03-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 2002, a group of specialists on water resources from the United States and Iran met in Tunis, Tunisia, for an interacademy workshop on water resources management, conservation, and recycling. This was the fourth interacademy workshop on a variety of topics held in 2002, the first year of such workshops. Tunis was selected as the location for the workshop because the Tunisian experience in addressing water conservation issues was of interest to the participants from both the United States and Iran. This report includes the agenda for the workshop, all of the papers that were presented, and the list of site visits.

Download or read book Drip Irrigation for Agriculture written by Jean-Philippe Venot and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Initially associated with hi-tech irrigated agriculture, drip irrigation is now being used by a much wider range of farmers in emerging and developing countries. This book documents the enthusiasm, spread and use of drip irrigation systems by smallholders but also some disappointments and disillusion faced in the global South. It explores and explains under which conditions it works, for whom and with what effects. The book deals with drip irrigation 'behind the scenes', showcasing what largely remain 'untold stories'. Most research on drip irrigation use plot-level studies to demonstrate the technology’s ability to save water or improve efficiencies and use a narrow and rather prescriptive engineering or economic language. They tend to be grounded in a firm belief in the technology and focus on the identification of ways to improve or better realize its potential. The technology also figures prominently in poverty alleviation or agricultural modernization narratives, figuring as a tool to help smallholders become more innovative, entrepreneurial and business minded. Instead of focusing on its potential, this book looks at drip irrigation-in-use, making sense of what it does from the perspectives of the farmers who use it, and of the development workers and agencies, policymakers, private companies, local craftsmen, engineers, extension agents or researchers who engage with it for a diversity of reasons and to realize a multiplicity of objectives. While anchored in a sound engineering understanding of the design and operating principles of the technology, the book extends the analysis beyond engineering and hydraulics to understand drip irrigation as a sociotechnical phenomenon that not only changes the way water is supplied to crops but also transforms agricultural farming systems and even how society is organized. The book provides field evidence from a diversity of interdisciplinary case studies in sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America, and South Asia, thus revealing some of the untold stories of drip irrigation.

Download or read book Handbook of Agricultural Economics written by Robert E. Evenson and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2007-06-28 with total page 847 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 3 of this series of the Handbooks in Economics follows on from the previous two volumes by focusing on the fundamental concepts of agricultural economics. The first part of the volume examines the developments in human resources and technology mastery. The second part follows on by considering the processes and impact of invention and innovation in this field. The effects of market forces are examined in the third part, and the volume concludes by analysing the economics of our changing natural resources, including the past effects of climate change.Overall this volume forms a comprehensive and accessible survey of the field of agricultural economics and is recommended reading for anyone with an interest, either academic or professional, in this area.*Part of the renown Handbooks in Economics series*Contributors are leaders of their areas*International in scope and comprehensive in coverage

Download or read book Improving Irrigation in Asia written by Elinor Ostrom and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A unique and significant longitudinal study of irrigation intervention in FMIS in Nepal that revives important debates on how irrigation management evolves and how this can be investigated. This concise and accessible book can inform and challenge agencies and donors to reflect on policies and researchers to argue further the study of collective action and political theory in irrigation management.' – Linden Vincent, Wageningen University, The Netherlands 'Improving Irrigation in Asia by Elinor Ostrom and colleagues is grounded in intimate detail on water management experience in Nepal while being informed by broadly-applicable concepts and behavioral theories. It greatly advances our understanding of management options and effects. As the water resources available for agriculture become more limited and unreliable, the efficiency and productivity with which irrigation water is used must be increased. While better technology can assist in this quest, the greatest potential gains lie in the social and organizational domains.' – Norman Uphoff, Cornell University, US 'Governance of irrigation systems is complex, needing social, technical and financial actions that support farming. Few people have as much knowledge of self-governing irrigation systems as these authors, and few countries have as many of these systems as Nepal. Lessons from these small irrigation systems can be adapted to much larger units, and to other kinds of activity. External assistance on a modest scale could generate practical benefit, by encouraging self-reliance in communities.' – Charles Abernethy, International Irrigation Management Institute, Colombo (1987–94) and Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand (1996–99) Improving Irrigation in Asia is based on a longitudinal study over two decades on innovative intervention for sustained performance of irrigation systems. The work identifies key factors that can help explain the performance of interventions, and explicates lessons for resource management and the management of development assistance. In 1985, the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat of Nepal and the International Irrigation Management Institute developed an ingenious intervention program for nineteen irrigation systems located in the middle hills of Nepal in an attempt to overcome the prevailing 'best-practices' traps, in regard to assisting irrigation systems. This book highlights the innovativeness of the project lay in its provision of ample opportunities for farmers to make decisions regarding the operation of the irrigation system based on their local knowledge and creativity. The authors of this work, Elinor Ostrom, Wai Fung Lam, Prachanda Pradhan and Ganesh P. Shivakoti provide detailed analysis of these interventions and support the conclusion that farmers can build on an innovative intervention that not only provides physical improvements but also enhances farmers' problem-solving capacity. They argue that to achieve sustainable improvements in performance, the farmers themselves need to engage in collective action over time and support local entrepreneurs who provide leadership and stimulate adjustments to change. Providing practical policy solutions, this study will prove a fascinating and invaluable read for academics and scholars of development studies, resource management, and irrigation studies, as well as development specialists in international agencies, policymakers in governments and international donor agencies.

Download or read book Irrigation Water Pricing written by François Molle and published by CABI. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much hope has been vested in pricing as a means of helping to regulate and rationalize water management, notably in the irrigation sector. The pricing of water has often been applied universally, using general and ideological policies, and not considering regional environmental and economic differences. Almost 15 years after the emphasis laid at the Dublin and Rio conferences on treating water as an economic good, a comprehensive review of how such policies have helped manage water resources an irrigation use is necessary. The case-studies presented here offer a reassessment of current policies by evaluating their objectives and constraints and often demonstrating their failure by not considering the regional context. They will therefore contribute to avoiding costly and misplaced reforms and help design water policies that are based on a deeper understanding of the factors which eventually dictate their effectiveness.

Download or read book Pricing Irrigation Water written by Yacov Tsur and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As globalization links economies, the value of a country's irrigation water becomes increasingly sensitive to competitive forces in world markets. Water policy at the national and regional levels will need to accommodate these forces or water is likely to become undervalued. The inefficient use of this resource will lessen a country's comparative advantage in world markets and slow its transition to higher incomes, particularly in rural households. While professionals widely agree on what constitutes sound water resource management, they have not yet reached a consensus on the best ways of implementing policies. Policymakers have considered pricing water - a debated intervention - in many variations. Setting the price 'right,' some say, may guide different types of users in efficient water use by sending a signal about the value of this resource. Aside from efficiency, itself an important policy objective, equity, accessibility, and implementation costs associated with the right pricing must be considered. Focusing on the examples of China, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, and Turkey, Pricing Irrigation Water provides a clear methodology for studying farm-level demand for irrigation water. This book is the first to link the macroeconomics of policies affecting trade to the microeconomics of water demand for irrigation and, in the case of Morocco, to link these forces to the creation of a water user-rights market. This type of market reform, the contributors argue, will result in growing economic benefits to both rural and urban households.

Download or read book Canal Irrigation in British India written by Ian Stone and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-25 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed study of the local effects of the British Raj's irrigation schemes.

Download or read book Paths to the Emerging State in Asia and Africa written by Keijiro Otsuka and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-01-16 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND license. This book addresses the issue of how a country, which was incorporated into the world economy as a periphery, could make a transition to the emerging state, capable of undertaking the task of economic development and industrialization. It offers historical and contemporary case studies of transition, as well as the international background under which such a transition was successfully made (or delayed), by combining the approaches of economic history and development economics. Its aim is to identify relevant historical contexts, that is, the ‘initial conditions’ and internal and external forces which governed the transition. It also aims to understand what current low-income developing countries require for their transition. Three economic driving forces for the transition are identified. They are: (1) labor-intensive industrialization, which offers ample employment opportunities for labor force; (2) international trade, which facilitates efficient international division of labor; and (3) agricultural development, which improves food security by increasing supply of staple foods. The book presents a bold account of each driver for the transition.

Download or read book Importance of irrigated agriculture to the Ethiopian economy capturing the direct net benefits of irrigation written by Fitsum Hagos and published by IWMI. This book was released on 2009 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Irrigation development has been identified as a means to stimulate economic growth and rural development in Ethiopia. However, little attempt has been made to quantify the contribution of irrigation to national income. Using data from selected irrigation schemes, representing small, medium and large-scale schemes of modern or traditional typologies; the present coverage and planned growth of irrigation, actual and expected contributions of irrigation to the national economy were quantified following the approach of adjusted gross margin analysis. Our results show that irrigation yields 219.7% higher income compared to the rainfed system while its current and future contribution to agricultural GDP is estimated to be about 5.7 and 12% although irrigation covers about 5 and 9% of the total cultivated land area, respectively.

Download or read book The Institutional Economics of Water written by R. Maria Saleth and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication examines issues of water sector reform and performance from the perspectives of institutional economics and political economic studies. The authors develop an alternative quantitative assessment methodology based on the principle of 'institutional ecology', as well as data collected from 127 water experts from 43 countries and regions around the world using a cross-country review of recent water sector reforms within an institutional transaction cost framework.

Download or read book Irrigation and Drainage Engineering written by Peter Waller and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-18 with total page 747 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook focuses specifically on the combined topics of irrigation and drainage engineering. It emphasizes both basic concepts and practical applications of the latest technologies available. The design of irrigation, pumping, and drainage systems using Excel and Visual Basic for Applications programs are explained for both graduate and undergraduate students and practicing engineers. The book emphasizes environmental protection, economics, and engineering design processes. It includes detailed chapters on irrigation economics, soils, reference evapotranspiration, crop evapotranspiration, pipe flow, pumps, open-channel flow, groundwater, center pivots, turf and landscape, drip, orchards, wheel lines, hand lines, surfaces, greenhouse hydroponics, soil water movement, drainage systems design, drainage and wetlands contaminant fate and transport. It contains summaries, homework problems, and color photos. The book draws from the fields of fluid mechanics, soil physics, hydrology, soil chemistry, economics, and plant sciences to present a broad interdisciplinary view of the fundamental concepts in irrigation and drainage systems design.

Download or read book World Water Demand and Supply 1990 to 2025 written by and published by IWMI. This book was released on 1998 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents two alternative scenarios of water demand and supply for 118 countries over the 1990 to 2025 period and develops indicators of water scarcity for each country and for the world as a whole. This study is the first step in IWMI’s long-term research goal: to determine the extent and depth of water scarcity, its consequences for individual countries and what can be done about it.

Download or read book Water Scarcity written by Ernest A. Engelbert and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1984-01-01 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on papers and discussions from a conference held in Monterey, Calif., Sept. 1982 and sponsored by the Directorate on Arid Zone Ecosystems of the United States Man and the Biosphere Program et al.

Download or read book Irrigation in the Mediterranean written by François Molle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-05-09 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mediterranean irrigation is diverse due to, among other factors, the relative importance of water in the economy of each country, varied levels of aridity, heterogeneous levels economic, social and technological levels of development, and differences in political and social organization. However, most of the Mediterranean countries face similar problems to meet their water demands because of the scarcity and variability of renewable resources, growing water requirements from non-agricultural sectors, increasing environmental concerns related to water quality and environmental degradation, a social demand for larger public participation, and important technological changes. The time has come to reconsider the “not one drop lost to the sea” philosophy of yesteryears largely and to 'live within limits'. This book focuses on eight selected countries (Tunisia, Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, Israel and Egypt) and provides a comparative perspective that both thoroughly explores their specificities and identifies the common challenges faced by the irrigation sector in these countries. The book has been written at a critical moment, when the continued application of a supply-side water management model is revealing its unsustainable nature in numerous places; when significant technological changes are taking place in the irrigation sector; when new forms of management and governance are widely held as badly needed; and finally, when climate change is compounding many of the difficulties that have characterized irrigation policies and practices in the past decades. This complicated future context makes Mediterranean irrigation face various political dilemmas on water management, raising social tensions, triggering territorial and land conflicts, and stimulating new technological developments. This book provides a timely analysis of the particular trajectory of eight Mediterranean countries in these uncertain transformations, and attempts to identify the best strategies to avert or overcome future risks.