ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS OF DRIP IRRIGATION IN CONTEXT OF FRUIT CROPS MALIK, D.P.AND LUHACH, M.S. Department of Agricultural Economics CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125004 (India) INTORDUCTION The availability of adequate, timely and assured supply of water is an important determinant of agricultural productivity. Irrigation raises cropping intensity (Dingar and Prasad, 1987) and crop yields besides facilitating shifts in cropping patterns. The increase in food grain output during last tow decades has come mainly from increase in land productivity. The gross cropped area under food grain has not changed significantly in this period .The trio of inputs, irrigation, high yielding varieties seeds and fertilizer nutrients have contributed to this increase in productivity. Irrigation alone contributed 60 percent to growth in agricultural productivity. The vagaries of the monsoon render agriculture an uncertainty .The development of high investment, major and minor irrigation projects has to quite an extent free agriculture from the dependence of monsoon rains. However, the available water for irrigation purpose has been continuously diminishing even India blessed with abundant water resources. About 69 million hectare metre of surface and 43.2 m.ha.m of ground water is available for use however, present utilization is approximately 60m.ha.m for various purposes in the country. The use of water forirrigation consttitues about 84 percent of total utilization potential of water i.e.75 billion cubic metre. With the increase in demand of water for other uses, the share of water use for irrigation is likely to go down to about 73 percent by 2025.A.D.In a vast country like India with a geographical area of 328 million hectares, less than 45 percent of the area cultivated. Out ofcultivated area only 65 million hectares (35 %) gets irrigation. Even after harnessing the entire potential of water resources, not more than 50 percent of cultivated land is irrigated (Anonymous, 2001). _____________________________________________________________________________Assistant Scientist ** Research Associate The paper is to be presented at International Workshop "Economics of Water and Agriculture" to be held at Institute of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, The Hebrew University, Jer usalem, Rehovot,Isreal from December 18-20,2002
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The availability of adequate, timely and assured supply of water is an importantdeterminant of agricultural productivity. Irrigation raises cropping intensity (Dingar and Prasad,
1987) and crop yields besides facilitating shifts in cropping patterns. The increase in food grain
output during last tow decades has come mainly from increase in land productivity. The gross
cropped area under food grain has not changed significantly in this period .The trio of inputs,
irrigation, high yielding varieties seeds and fertilizer nutrients have contributed to this increase
in productivity. Irrigation alone contributed 60 percent to growth in agricultural productivity.
The vagaries of the monsoon render agriculture an uncertainty .The development of high
investment, major and minor irrigation projects has to quite an extent free agriculture from the
dependence of monsoon rains. However, the available water for irrigation purpose has been
continuously diminishing even India blessed with abundant water resources. About 69 million
hectare metre of surface and 43.2 m.ha.m of ground water is available for use however, present
utilization is approximately 60m.ha.m for various purposes in the country. The use of water for
irrigation consttitues about 84 percent of total utilization potential of water i.e.75 billion cubic
metre. With the increase in demand of water for other uses, the share of water use for irrigation
is likely to go down to about 73 percent by 2025.A.D.In a vast country like India with a
geographical area of 328 million hectares, less than 45 percent of the area cultivated. Out of
cultivated area only 65 million hectares (35 %) gets irrigation. Even after harnessing the entire
potential of water resources, not more than 50 percent of cultivated land is irrigated
rice, sugarcane, sunflower in irrigated area and cotton, pearl millet, cluster bean, chickpea, black
gram, green gram, redgram, rapeseed & mustard, in dry region.
At present, the area under drip irrigation in the state is more than two thousand
hectares. The investigation was carried out in southern part of the state having annual rainfall of
less than 500 mm, undulating land and sandy soil. Furthermore, the ground water is brackish
and unfit for irrigation in most parts of region. The practiced surface irrigation under prevailing
conditions and a very small discharge of tubewells resulted into very low irrigation efficiency
besides high labour requirement. The use of drip irrigation technology is limited to fruit crops
like grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow).
Sampling: The sample design consists of the multistage sampling technique. For the selection
of districts, a list of all districts of Haryana state having drip sets was prepared. The districts
Bhiwani, Hisar, Gurgaon and Mohindergarh, were selected purposively on the basis of scarce
water availability. From each selected district, one block having maximum number of drip sets
was purposively selected. Further, from each selected block, a selection of cluster of three
villages was made subject to constraint of time and funds for data collection. Prior to the
selection of ultimate unit, they were classified into small, medium, and large on the basis of
operational holding using cumulative total method. Finally, five cultivators were randomly
selected from each village to make a total sum of 60 cultivators. All the selected cultivators were
personally interviewed to collect cross -sectional data pertaining to installation cost of pump and
drip sets, labour & maintenance costs and electricity charges, area irrigated, cropping pattern,
input-output of crops etc. for the year 1999-2000.
Analytical Tools: Fixed cost reflects the amount of capital investment in well, pumping unit
and drip set (Drip set consists of screen filter, control & flush valve as fixed items whilecomplete ventury & bypass assemblies and sand filter varies from crop to crop). Prices of
variable inputs such as labour, electricity and expenses required for pumping and distributing
water reflects operating cost. Maintenance costs consist of expenses incurred on repair and
Drip irrigation is an efficient method of providing irrigation water, fertilizers and
pesticides (Kumar,1999) directly into root zones of plants and it permits the irrigation to limit
the watering closely to crop water requirement. The system applied water at low rate and under
pressure to keep the soil moisture within desired range for plant growth. The ideal crop
irrigation in one which all droppers deliver the same volume of water in a given irrigation time.
Conservation of water and its use efficiency are considered advantages of the system. Drip
method of Irrigation leads to substantial reduction in water losses occurring from evaporation,
conveyance and distribution .
1. Utilization Pattern
1.1.Pattern of irrigation on sample farms: The efficiency of water use is extremely low in the
flood method of irrigation (FMI) due to evaporation, conveyance and distribution losses. Out of
total irrigated area, surface, sprinkler, drip and either of both methods constituted
31.62,42.57,12.28 and 13.59 percent, respectively (Table-1). The area irrigated by drip method
was very less because its use is limited to fruit crops. On large farms, area irrigated by this
method is maximum among different categories of farms due to more area under fruit crops and
initial heavy investment of installation.
1.2. Water consumption and water use efficiency: Water requirement by DMI is only about
30-40 percent of the surface method of irrigation (Jain& Kumar, 1973,Kaushal,
1976,Aggarwal1980, Ganjendra, 1992). This method induced water loss reduction or water use
efficiency improvement required an exact measurement of water delivery and actual water
consumption by crops. In context of sampled based field study, it is inevitable to use the nearest
practicable proxy like irrigation time in terms of Horse Power (HP). The HP hours of water are
computed by multiplying the HP of pump set with number of hours of irrigation. The extent of water saving is substantial higher i.e. 39.80 percent for water intensive crops like ber and
kinnow in comparison to grapes (Table-2). About an additional area upto 0.54 to 0.66 hectare
irrigated by adopting DMI is also considered indicator for evaluating water use efficiency. The
tubes, drippers and accessories) accounted for 70.67 per cent of the total cost for grapes, 50.36
per cent for ber and 65.94 per cent for citrus orchard. The fixed capital cost remained almost
same for all crops. The variation in variable cost is mainly due to variation in number of plants
and spacing of the respective crops. About 50 per cent of capital cost as subsidy is provided by
Central and State Governments to encourage the adoption of this method among peasants due to
heavy installation investment. The proportion of subsidy actually availed by the cultivators was
48.40 per cent for grapes, 41 per cent for ber and 43 per cent for citrus (kinnow) as reported by
cultivators of the study area. But the subsidy was not taken into account in calculating the
economic feasibility of drip method.
2.2.Working cost: The average annual working cost per hectare of drip set was worked out Rs.
27955, Rs. 27725 and 28070 of grapes, ber and kinnow, respectively (Table-4). It is evident
from the table 2 that the cost of variable inputs was 22.11 per cent, while fixed cost accounted
for 77.89 per cent of total working cost in case of grapes. The fixed cost of drip sets accounted
about 61.56 and 66.93 per cent, while variable cost accounted 38.44 and 43.07 per cent for ber
and citrus (kinnow), respectively. Among the variable cost, labour charges accounted for
maximum i.e.14.01, 23.65 and 19.75 per cent of the total working cost in case of grapes, ber and
citrus (kinnow), respectively. Labour and electricity charges are much lower in comparison to
other methods of irrigation because of permanent placement of drip sets for crops.Consequently, the total annual operating cost of drip set was worked out to be Rs. 2245, Rs.
4100 and Rs. 3738 for grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow), respectively. The much variation in the
total annual operating cost for each fruit crop mainly due to variation in water requirement,
Drip irrigation system is an investment yielding returns over time and the cash flows can charge
over the time. Since this system involves fixed capital, it is necessary to take into account the
income streams for the whole life span of drip investment. The economic feasibility of drip
irrigation method in fruit crops was examined using four indicators, viz., Net Present Value
(NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) and Pay Back Period.
3.1.Net Present Value: Costs incurred and returns obtained from fruit orchard over time are not
comparable with annual crops grown in the area. This shows the need to estimate the deflated
returns of drip irrigation by discounting future returns. Hence, it is necessary to estimate the net
present value of future returns, which can be determined by discounting both the costs as well as
returns at the prevailing rate of interest. It is obvious from these tables that the NPVs of
discounted returns per hectare computed to be Rs. 18108, Rs. 13912 and Rs. 31011 for grapes,
ber and citrus (kinnow) orchards, respectively for the entire life of drip set (Tables5 -7).
The average net annual returns per hectare were worked out to be Rs. 7217, Rs. 4434,
and Rs. 9885 for drip sets on grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow) crop, respectively. The average
annual net return is determined by dividing the net present value by the present worth of an
annuity of Rs. 1.00 for 8 years (grapes) and 10 years (ber and kinnow) at 12 per cent discount
rate is Rs. 2.5097 and Rs. 3.1372, respectively.
3.2.Benefit -Cost ratio: The benefit-cost ratios were found as 1.737, 1.949 and 2.570 for drip
set on grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow) orchards, respectively (Table 5-7). It indicates that an
investment of Rs. 1.00 on drip irrigated orchard would fetch a return of Rs. 1.737, Rs. 1.949 and
Rs. 2.57 for grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow), respectively. The B-C ratio greater than unity in all
three crops reveals that investment in drip system is economically viable and sound.
Muralidhara et. al (1994) also reported BCR is found greater than one incase of mulberry.3.3.Internal Rate of Return: The internal rate of return, the investment cost and gross returns
from first to eight year for grapes and first to tenth year for ber and kinnow have been depicted
in Tables 8 to 10, respectively. The net cash flows were obtained by using these single values,
The computed values of internal rate of return or earning power of drip irrigation system
were found at a very high rate i.e. 33, 35, and 47 per cent on grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow)
orchards, respectively.
3.4.Pay Back Period: The cost incurred on drip system was Rs. 27495, Rs. 16418 and Rs.
22044 for grapes, ber and kinnow, respectively. Thus, the pay back period of drip system
worked out to be five years for grapes (Narayanamoorthy, 1997) while it was four years in case
of ber and kinnow, respectively.
Therefore, the cultivators are advised to make use of drip sets. Govt. should continue
providing subsidy due to heavy installation cost of drip sets. The financial agencies should
involve actively in providing credit requirement for purchase of drip sets.
4.1. Cost and returns of surface and drip irrigation systems
The crops grapes,ber and kinnow under drip irrigation accounted for 76 percent of
total cultivated area on sample farms. The cost of cultivation incurred is low comparatively on
drip farms. The reduction in annual cultivation cost per hectare worked out was 3.95 percent in
grapes, 2.90 percent in ber and 5.37 percent in citrus(Table-11). Among the different
components of operational cost significant reduction exhibited in labour, weeding fertilizer and
ploughing. The annual gain per annum in yield of these crops calculated was 11.21,16.20
and26.14 percent, respectively. The increase in crop productivity is attributed mainly due to
efficient use of water and irrigation intensity. Net returns in case of all the crops were also
higher on drip farms in comparison to non-drip farms because of reduction in cost of cultivation
and increase in yield. Thus, DMI accrues benefits both in terms of cultivation cost and net
returns.
4.2.Comparative advantages of irrigation methods. The economic viability of fruit cropsunder surface and drip irrigation system calculated acts as a guide for the cultivators to adopt
particular irrigation method on the farm. The discounted returns (at 12 percent from one hectare
of grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow) worked out was higher in case of DMI as compared to
under both irrigation methods. But net returns was higher incase of DMI due to higher value of
BCR. Therefore, considering all indicators, it was concluded that cultivation of fruit crops by
using DMI in the study area is more economical and cost effective.
CONCLUSIONS
Based on the results, it concludes that the average capital cost of drip sets calculated to
be Rs. 37964, Rs.22424 and Rs. 32700 per hectare for grapes, ber and kinnow, respectively.
Fixed capital cost of drip set remained almost same for all the crops. The findings confirmed
the much variation in variable cost of drip sets for all crops, which was mainly due to the
variation in number of plants and spacing for each crop. The total annual operational cost per
hectare of drip sets was worked to be Rs.2245, Rs.4100 and Rs.3738 for all three fruit crops,
respectively. Further it was obvious that labour and electricity charges were much lower in drip
method of irrigation in comparison to other methods of irrigation.
The net present values of drip sets of discounted returns for per hectare computed to Rs.
18108, Rs. 13912 and Rs. 31011 on grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow) orchards, respectively for
the entire life of drip set. The earning power of drip set as indicated by IRR were found at very
high rate i.e. 33, 37 and 47 per cent on grapes, ber and citrus (kinnow) orchards, respectively.
The benefit cost ratio were worked out 1:1.737, 1:1.949 and 1:2.570 for grapes, ber and kinnow
orchards, respectively. The pay back period of drip sets estimated to be five years on grapes and
ber orchard, and four year on citrus orchard. Thus, investment on drip irrigation was found
sound and economically viable. Therefore, the cultivators are advised to make use of drip sets.
Govt. should continue providing subsidy due to heavy installation cost of drip sets. The financial
agencies should involve actively in providing credit requirement for purchase of drip sets. The
Govt. should initiate promotion of better water management practices, installation of drip inwater scarce and drought prone areas, conjunctive use of surface and ground water and
cultivators' participation in irrigation water management. Pipes and droppers used in DMI
should be made popularized among cultivators thorough demonstration/adaptive trials.Today,
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Delhi
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Table 3: Estimated annual cost of drip set for different crops(Rs./ ha.)
Estimated Investment costSr. No. Particulars
Grapes
(4 x 4 M)
Ber
(8 x 8 M)
Citrus (Kinnow)
(6 x 6 M)
A Fixed cost
1 Screen filter 1820 1820 1820
2 Control valve 475 475 475
3 Flush valve 90 90 90
Total – A 2385(6.28)
2385(10.64)
2385(7.29)
B. Optional items
1 Complete Ventury
Assembly
1600 1600 1600
2 Bypass Assembly 950 950 950
3 Sand filter 6200 6200 6200
Total- B 8750
(23.09)
8750
(39.00)
8750
(26.77)
Total A+B 11135
(29.30)
11135
(49.64)
11135
(34.06)
C. Variable cost* 26829
(70.67)
11299
(50.36)
21565
(65.94)
Total- A + B + C 37964
(100.00)
22424
(100.00)
32700
(100.00)
Note: Cost covers pumpset cost. The cost to install a tubewell (includes the cost of well, cost of motor, pumps &boring in well)
was worked out to be Rs. 75450Variable cost includes the cost of PVC pipes, Laterals, Micro tube, Drippers andAccessoriesFigures in parentheses indicate the percentage to total cost of drip set.