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Economics of Water Demand in Commercialized Agriculture
Author(s) -
Moore Charles V.
Publication year - 1962
Publication title -
journal ‐ american water works association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1551-8833
pISSN - 0003-150X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1551-8833.1962.tb00926.x
Subject(s) - irrigation , san joaquin , agricultural economics , environmental science , water conservation , price elasticity of demand , agriculture , economics , irrigation statistics , water resource management , farm water , agronomy , geography , microeconomics , archaeology , soil science , biology
The first objective of this article is to estimate a demand schedule for irrigation water in a highly commercialized farm area of California's San Joaquin Valley. The second objective is to estimate the value of temporal redistribution of a limited water supply by the use of storage. The results of this study have shown that the commercial farm demand for irrigation water is relatively inelastic in the lower price ranges and becomes progressively more elastic with increasing prices. Thus, it can be concluded that water suppliers, such as irrigation districts which are selling irrigation water in the lower price ranges, can repay costs of additional structures and services if this entails only a modest price increase. A further conclusion to be drawn from this study is that a temporal redistribution of the water supply can have a significant effect on farm income. By shifting the availability of the stream runoff from the spring, when it normally occurs, to a point in time when it more nearly coincides with peak crop demands, farm income was increased. The increase was due to the availability of water for wetter irrigation treatments on some crops, and production was made possible of crops that otherwise could not have been grown because of insufficient water.