Economic feasibility of conversion to mobile drip irrigation in the Central Ogallala region
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Economic feasibility of conversion to mobile drip irrigation in the Central Ogallala region Sydney Reynolds1 · Bridget Guerrero1 · Bill Golden2 · Steve Amosson3 · Thomas Marek3 · Jourdan M. Bell3 Received: 13 September 2019 / Accepted: 11 February 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract As groundwater levels continue to decline in the Ogallala Aquifer, stakeholders, policymakers, and producers encourage the adoption of new irrigation technology in an effort to conserve groundwater, extend the economic life of the aquifer, and enhance profitability. One such technology currently receiving attention in the Central Ogallala region is the mobile drip irrigation (MDI) application system. This study compares MDI to low elevation spray application irrigation by evaluating the changes in variable cost per hectare to calculate the payback period for a MDI system under three levels of investment cost for grain and fiber crops representing three levels of water use while holding yield constant. Using a 3% discount rate, under the medium level of investment cost ($371 per hectare), a discounted payback period of 4.9, 9.0, and 6.3 years is required for corn, cotton, and sorghum/wheat, respectively. As the cost per hectare to convert an existing center pivot drops to $185 per hectare, the payback period also drops to 2.3, 4.2, and 3.0 years, respectively. Thus, producers growing higher water use crops are able to recover the costs of the conversion to MDI through increased water use efficiency quicker than producers growing medium and lower water use crops.
Introduction Many rural communities overlying the Ogallala Aquifer rely heavily on irrigated agriculture, and this is undoubtedly true in the central region of the aquifer. This area is facing the challenge of maintaining agricultural production with the current rate of decline in aquifer depth. The Central Ogallala region is a key producer of several agricultural products that have been traditionally irrigated from the aquifer including corn, cotton, sorghum, and wheat. Irrigated yields from 2014 to 2018 for these crops in the Texas Panhandle have averaged 12,428 kg/ha for corn, 1222 kg/ha for cotton, 5837 kg/ha for sorghum, and 3497 kg/ha of wheat (National Agricultural Statistics Service 2019). These crops received an average Communicated by Daran Rudnick. * Bridget Guerrero [email protected] 1
Department of Agricultural Sciences, West Texas A&M University, Canyon, TX 79016, USA
2
Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University, Meridian, TX 76665, USA
3
Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, Amarillo, TX 79106, USA
price, over the same five-year period, of $0.15, $1.41, $0.14, and $0.17 per kg, respectively (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service 2019), Table 1. In this region that averages less than 0.51 m of rainfall annually, the aquifer is being depleted beyond sustainable levels (Kansas State University 2019). To cope with the limited water availability, producers are consi
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