The Economic Impacts of Using Renewable Energy Technologies for Irrigation Water Pumping and Nanoparticle Fertilizers on Agri-Food Production in Iraq

Shayma A. Al-Rubaye () and Edwin C. Price
Additional contact information
Shayma A. Al-Rubaye: Agricultural Economics Department, College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Baghdad, Baghdad 10070, Iraq
Edwin C. Price: Agricultural Economics Department, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-32

Abstract: While traditional energy sources such as oil, coal, and natural gas drive economic growth, they also seriously affect people’s health and the environment. Renewable energies (RE) are presently seen as an efficient choice for attaining long-term sustainability in development. They provide an adequate response to climate change and supply sufficient electricity. The current situation in Iraq results from a decades-long scarcity of reliable electricity, which has impacted various industries, including agriculture. There are diverse prospects for using renewable energy sources to address the present power crisis. The economic and environmental impacts of renewable energy systems were investigated in this study by using the solar pumping irrigation system and nanoparticle fertilizers on agri-food production with the Farm Simulation FARMSIM model. The results show that using all REs with Carefree Water Conditioner for water treatment resulted in the highest net present value and profit compared to other scenarios. The findings, however, indicate that the All RE scenario (using a solar irrigation system with a nanoparticle fertilizer system, a low-cost technology) is the most feasible and has the highest benefit–cost ratio. Due to high initial investment costs, all traditional approaches (using traditional irrigation and fertilizer systems) had a lower benefit–cost ratio than the other scenarios. According to simulation results, all four scenarios are profitable and feasible for implementation.

Keywords: renewable energy; nanoparticles fertilizers; FARMSIM; simulation; risk analysis; Iraq (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5478/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5478/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:6:p:5478-:d:1102512

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().