More Irrigated Crop Production with Less Water Use

Abstract

Three major performance indicators developed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI, 1998) are used in this paper to evaluate the performance of the irrigated crops in the region according to the commonly followed practices among farmers as compared with their performance under conditions of much improved irrigation management and agricultural practices. These indicators include the Standardized Gross Value Production (SGVP), the unit area production output (crop yield or its financial value per hectare) and the unit volume of irrigation water production output (crop yield or its financial value per cubic meter). The comparison between the two agricultural practices indicated that the unit area output of the common practices among farmers did not exceed 6483 Libyan Dinars / hectare, while that under the improved practices was 11605 Libyan Dinars / hectare. The unit volume of irrigation water output for the common practices was 0.63 Libyan Dinar / cubic meter, while that under the improved practices reached 1.63 Libyan Dinar / cubic meter. These results clearly show the importance of the applied performance indicators in the assessment and clarification of the economic impacts of any introduced interventions aiming at the improvement of and/or the differentiation among irrigation management practices and alternative agricultural cropping systems.