ADAPTATION OF MEDITERRANEAN CROPS TO WATER PRESSURE IN THE EBRO BASIN: A WATER EFFICIENCY INDEX

Zaira Fernandez-Haddad and Sonia Quiroga

No 114358, 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: In this paper, we assess the output-oriented technical efficiency of agricultural production functions in order to compare, over time, economic and environmental production processes in the different regions of the Spanish Ebro basin, in a climate change context. The measurement of technical efficiency in agriculture can provide useful information about the competitiveness of farms and their potential to increase its productivity moreover can help in the crops adaptation to water pressure by improving the management of scarce resources. Here, we generate an agricultural water efficiency index to evaluate the adaptation of some Mediterranean crops to the water pressures in this area. We estimate frontier production functions and technical efficiency measures, using panel data models. This will allow us to observe changes in production due to individual specific effects and those that are time specific. To characterize our model, we use historical data, about crop yields, water requirements and climate as well as socio-economic and geographical aspects of the most representative crops in the provinces of the Ebro basin during 1976-2007. Then we generate a ranking of the most efficient crops across geographical areas, given their water use and other inputs, to evaluate policy scenarios with adjustments in water supply.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 11
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eff and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/114358/files/Fernandez-Haddad_Zaira_529.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:eaae11:114358

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.114358

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland from European Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().