1 / 15

The Impact of Farm Size on Irrigation Practices and On-Farm Irrigation Efficiency in the Elephant Butte Irrigation Distr

The Impact of Farm Size on Irrigation Practices and On-Farm Irrigation Efficiency in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District. Rhonda Skaggs & Zohrab Samani New Mexico State University. Structure of U.S. Agriculture. Majority of production on few farms Off-farm work

amora
Download Presentation

The Impact of Farm Size on Irrigation Practices and On-Farm Irrigation Efficiency in the Elephant Butte Irrigation Distr

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Impact of Farm Size on Irrigation Practices and On-Farm Irrigation Efficiency in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District Rhonda Skaggs & Zohrab Samani New Mexico State University

  2. Structure of U.S. Agriculture • Majority of production on few farms • Off-farm work • Retirement or residential/lifestyle farms • 54% of all U.S. farms • 7.8% of value of production • Urban fringe agriculture • Irrigated river valleys in the West

  3. Irrigation in the West • 92% of consumptive water use • Increased competition for water supplies • Municipal • Industrial • Environmental • Increased irrigation efficiency? • Technologies or techniques

  4. Elephant Butte Irrigation District • Irrigated farms increased 70%, 1974-1997 • Growth in small farms, urban fringe • Dualistic structure pecan production • This research… • Relationship between farm size & irrigation practices, efficiency • Potential responses to incentives & water marketing • Data for 340 pecan orchards

  5. Irrigation Duration… • Hours / acre / irrigation • Indicator of irrigation efficiency • Deep percolation losses • Long durations due to • Highly permeable soils • Low discharge at farm turnout (infrastructure) • Surface roughness, unleveled fields • Guideline = 0.5 hrs/ac/irrigation

  6. Field Verification • Low flows • Small on-farm turnouts • Long fields, rough surfaces • Inadequate infrastructure • Easements, access, common property • Irrigation • Recreation • Tradition • Lifestyle • Meditation

  7. Findings… • Overdelivery to small farms • Underdelivery to large farms • Delivery losses or on-farm application? • Small orchard nut production • 161 lbs / acre-foot • Large orchard nut production • 300 lbs / acre-foot

  8. Next step… • Not feasible to survey producers • More field measurements & “conversations” with water users • Programming models for different farms • “They don’t want to spend any money.” • “I’m retired, what else have I got to do?” • “I like to listen to the water.” • Objective functions?

  9. EBID Distribution of Crops

More Related