Survey of Farmer’s Reaction to Agricultural Water Policies in Sub Sector of Farm in Khorramabad County Using Positive Mathematical Programming Approach (PMP)

The present study was done with the aim of water resource management in the agricultural sector. In this regard, agricultural water policies using positive mathematical programming in the eight scenarios on cropping pattern of strategic products of Khorramabad county was applied in 2012-2013. Scenarios consist of an increase the 200, 300, 400 and 500 percent in price of water, reducing 20 and 30 percent in the amount of available water and apply combination policy of increasing 100 percent in price with decreasing 10 and 20 percent the amount of water. According to the results, in the policy of increasing the price of water until 500 percent, the acreage of irrigated crops was reduced and in opposite, the acreage of rain-fed crops was increased. The most reduction is related to the colza and bean with 0.31 and 0.2 percent that showed high sensitivity to raise price of water. Totally, change in the cropping pattern of irrigated crops to rain-fed crops was done and saving water was very low about 0.03 percent. In the policy of reducing the amount of available water, the pattern has been allocated to crops with high efficiency and low water consumption, and saving the amount of water is significant up to 35.84 percent.

JEL Classification: B21, B41, CO2, C6, C61, D28, D78, O1, O13, O18

Keywords:
Water Demand, Crop Pattern, Positive Mathematical Programming, Policy Analysis, Khorramabad