IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/jasjnl/v6y2014i10p84.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Marginal Water Productivity of Irrigated Durum Wheat in Semi-Arid Tunisia

Author

Listed:
  • Iheb Frija
  • Aymen Frija
  • Ali Chebil
  • Hatem Cheikh M’Hamed
  • Stijn Speelman
  • Mariem Makhlouf

Abstract

Recent studies on agricultural water management in Tunisia report low water productivity for some of the currently widely cultivated crops such as durum wheat. The objective of this study is to estimate water productivity and marginal value of irrigation of durum wheat in central Tunisia. We develop a production function, in which the durum wheat irrigation revenue of farmers per hectare is expressed in terms of the used water volume in addition to other production factors. The function was estimated for a sample of durum wheat farms from Central Tunisia. Results show that 31.7% of the farmers were applying water volumes above the economic optimal volume (more than 2700 m3/ha). Moreover, 50% of the farmers were found to be applying less irrigation water than this optimal volume. Applying water above the optimal volume means that the benefit farmers obtain from each supplementary unit of irrigation water is lower than the market price of irrigation water currently applied in the region (0.110 TND/m3). Then, water is wasted. However, using less water than the optimal volume means that farmers can make further supplementary irrigations and obtain more benefit from it (extra-yield). The study also shows that most of the farmers in the study area do not apply good practices with respect to irrigation scheduling and irrigation doses. Improving irrigation performance will largely preserve water resources and enhance food security in Tunisia.

Suggested Citation

  • Iheb Frija & Aymen Frija & Ali Chebil & Hatem Cheikh M’Hamed & Stijn Speelman & Mariem Makhlouf, 2014. "Marginal Water Productivity of Irrigated Durum Wheat in Semi-Arid Tunisia," Journal of Agricultural Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 6(10), pages 1-84, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:6:y:2014:i:10:p:84
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/download/34831/22192
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/view/34831
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. F. Chemak & J.Ph Boussemart & F. Jacquet, 2010. "Farming system performance and water use efficiency in the Tunisian semi-arid region: data envelopment analysis approach," Post-Print hal-00570321, HAL.
    2. Wesseling, J.G. & Feddes, R.A., 2006. "Assessing crop water productivity from field to regional scale," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(1-2), pages 30-39, November.
    3. Shamim A. Sahibzada, 2002. "Pricing Irrigation Water in Pakistan: An Evaluation of Available Options," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 41(3), pages 209-241.
    4. Zekri, Slim & Easter, William, 2005. "Estimating the potential gains from water markets: a case study from Tunisia," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 161-175, April.
    5. Frija, Aymen & Chebil, Ali & Abdelkafi, Belhassen, 2012. "Irrigation water use efficiency in collective irrigated schemes of Tunisia: determinants and potential irrigation cost reduction," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ali Chebil & Aymen Frija, 2014. "Impact of Improving Irrigation Water Use Efficiency on the Valorization of Water Resources: Case of Irrigated Wheat Production Systems in Central Tunisia," Working Papers 865, Economic Research Forum, revised Nov 2014.
    2. Pereira, Helga & Marques, Rui Cunha, 2017. "An analytical review of irrigation efficiency measured using deterministic and stochastic models," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 28-35.
    3. Chebil, A. & Frija, A. & Bennouna, B., 2018. "Impact of water shortage on the competitiveness of agricultural commodities in Tunisia," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275874, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Zhuo-wan Liu & Tomas Balezentis & Yao-yao Song & Guo-liang Yang, 2019. "Estimating Capacity Utilization of Chinese State Farms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-29, September.
    5. Chebil, Ali & Frija, Iheb & Bahri, Walid, 2014. "Irrigation water efficiency in wheat production in Chbika (Tunisia):Parametric versus Nonparametric Comparisons," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14.
    6. Watto, Muhammad Arif & Mugera, Amin William, 2013. "Measuring Groundwater Irrigation Efficiency in Pakistan: A DEA Approach Using the Sub-vector and Slack-based Models," Working Papers 144943, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    7. Watto, Muhammad, 2013. "Measuring Groundwater Irrigation Efficiency in Pakistan: A DEA Approach Using the Sub-vector and Slack-based Models," 2013 Conference (57th), February 5-8, 2013, Sydney, Australia 152204, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    8. Chebil, Ali & Frija, Aymen, 2016. "Impact of improving water-use efficiency on its valuation: The case of irrigated wheat production in Tunisia," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 11(2), pages 1-10.
    9. Chebil, Ali & Abbas, Kais & Frija, Aymen, 2013. "Irrigation water use efficiency in central Tunisian's wheat production systems: A stochastic data envelopment approach," 2013 Fourth International Conference, September 22-25, 2013, Hammamet, Tunisia 160290, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    10. Imran, Muhammad Ali & Ali, Asghar & Ashfaq, Muhammad & Hassan, Sarfraz & Culas, Richard & Ma, Chunbo, 2019. "Impact of climate smart agriculture (CSA) through sustainable irrigation management on Resource use efficiency: A sustainable production alternative for cotton," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Gohar, Abdelaziz A. & Ward, Frank A., 2010. "Gains from expanded irrigation water trading in Egypt: An integrated basin approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(12), pages 2535-2548, October.
    12. Raats, Peter A.C. & Feddes, Reinder A., 2006. "Contributions by Jans Wesseling, Jan van Schilfgaarde, and Herman Bouwer to effective and responsible water management in agriculture," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(1-2), pages 9-29, November.
    13. Chebil, Ali & Soula, Rania & Souissi, Asma & Bennouna, Bechir, 2022. "Efficiency, valuation, and pricing of irrigation water in northeastern Tunisia," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    14. Michał Napierała & Mariusz Sojka & Joanna Jaskuła, 2023. "Impact of Water Meadow Restoration on Forage Hay Production in Different Hydro-Meteorological Conditions: A Case Study of Racot, Central Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-27, February.
    15. Shi, Tian, 2006. "Simplifying complexity: Rationalising water entitlements in the Southern Connected River Murray System, Australia," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 229-239, December.
    16. Isabelle Piot-Lepetit & Joseph Nzongang, 2019. "Performance assessment and definition of improvement paths for microfinance institutions: An application to a network of village banks in Cameroon," Post-Print hal-02619461, HAL.
    17. Muhammad Arif Watto & Amin W. Mugera, 2014. "Measuring Production and Irrigation Efficiencies of Rice Farms: Evidence from the Punjab Province, Pakistan," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 301-322, September.
    18. Frija, Aymen & Chebil, Ali & Abdelkafi, Belhassen, 2012. "Irrigation water use efficiency in collective irrigated schemes of Tunisia: determinants and potential irrigation cost reduction," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10.
    19. Alauddin, Mohammad & Rashid Sarker, Md. Abdur & Islam, Zeenatul & Tisdell, Clement, 2020. "Adoption of alternate wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation as a water-saving technology in Bangladesh: Economic and environmental considerations," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    20. Ren, Dongyang & Xu, Xu & Engel, Bernard & Huang, Quanzhong & Xiong, Yunwu & Huo, Zailin & Huang, Guanhua, 2019. "Hydrological complexities in irrigated agro-ecosystems with fragmented land cover types and shallow groundwater: Insights from a distributed hydrological modeling method," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 868-881.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:6:y:2014:i:10:p:84. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.