Economic analysis of alternate wetting and drying irrigation technique, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, dry season 2015

Date

5-2016

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Economics

College

College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Nora DM. Carambas

Abstract

Water scarcity is a hindrance to the country?s aim of rice self-sufficiency because scarce water resource limits the chance to increase the effective crop area of the country. To counteract the limiting supply of water for rice production, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), together with the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and National Irrigation Administration (NIA), has introduced the alternate wetting and drying (AWD), an irrigation technique that intermittently dry and wet the fields. It was first introduced in Tarlac way back in 2001 as an alternative irrigation technique to the conventional continuous flooding (CF), which was found to use water excessively. However, only few farmers adopt this probably due to the farmers? risk-averse behavior. The economic advantage of AWD over CF irrigation technique was assessed in this study. The farm practices, level of input use, level of yield, net income, and technical efficiency of farms under the conventional and new irrigation technique were compared. In addition, the problems encountered under each technique were also identified. The study was done in Nueva Ecija, as this is the top rice-producing region in the country and is one of the areas that is vulnerable to El Nino. Forty farmer-respondents representing CF adopters and 32 AWD adopters were included in the study. To test the contribution of AWD adoption on the level of production, a stochastic frontier analysis was done. Results of the study show that rice farms irrigated by AWD had significantly increased yield by 8% (12 cavans/ha). AWD-irrigated rice farms were also able to minimize costs by 29% due to significantly lower expense on seed (by 26%), hired labor (by 43%), and fuel for irrigation (by 47%). Findings from the MLE estimates of stochastic frontier production function revealed that AWD adoption was able to increase the production of farms by 0.16%. Aside from AWD adoption, land area, seeds, and variety also contribute significantly to the higher level of farm production. In terms of technical efficiency, CF adopters were more technically efficient than AWD adopters, implying that there is greater room for technical improvement to increase the technical efficiency of the farms of AWD adopters. AWD-irrigated fields had 46% lower water consumption, which can be used to increase the irrigated area. They also have higher water productivity index (WPI). With these findings, it can then be said that the newly introduced AWD irrigation technique has more economic benefits and promotes the optimal use of water resource. It is recommended that the national government should promote mass adoption of AWD by conducting capacity-building among farmers. They should also form a monitoring body to be able to evaluate the progress of the farmers who adopted the technique.

Language

English

Location

UPLB Main Library Special Collections Section (USCS)

Call Number

Thesis

Document Type

Thesis

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