Watto Muhammad Arif, Mugera Amin
School of Agricultural and Resource Economics, The University of Western Australia M089, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Australia; The University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
J Sci Food Agric. 2014 Nov;94(14):3038-45. doi: 10.1002/jsfa.6652. Epub 2014 Apr 30.
Massive groundwater pumping for irrigation has started lowering water tables rapidly in different regions of Pakistan. Declining water tables have thus prompted research efforts to improve agricultural productivity and efficiency to make efficient use of scarce water resources. This study employs a restricted stochastic production frontier to estimate the level of, and factors affecting, technical efficiency of groundwater-irrigated cotton farms in the Punjab province of Pakistan.
The mean technical efficiency estimates indicate substantial technical inefficiencies among cotton growers. On average, tube-well owners and water buyers can potentially increase cotton production by 19% and 28%, respectively, without increasing the existing input level. The most influential factors affecting technical efficiency positively are the use of improved quality seed, consultation with extension field staff and farmers' perceptions concerning the availability of groundwater resources for irrigation in the future.
This study proposes that adopting improved seed for new cotton varieties and providing better extension services regarding cotton production technology would help to achieve higher efficiency in cotton farming. Within the context of falling water tables, educating farmers about the actual crop water requirements and guiding them about groundwater resource availability may also help to achieve higher efficiencies. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry.
巴基斯坦不同地区为灌溉而大量抽取地下水已导致地下水位迅速下降。地下水位下降促使人们开展研究，以提高农业生产力和效率，从而有效利用稀缺的水资源。本研究采用受限随机生产前沿模型来估计巴基斯坦旁遮普省地下水灌溉棉田的技术效率水平及其影响因素。
平均技术效率估计表明棉花种植者存在严重的技术无效率。平均而言，管井所有者和购水者在不增加现有投入水平的情况下，棉花产量有可能分别提高19%和28%。对技术效率产生积极影响的最主要因素是使用优质种子、与推广田间工作人员进行咨询以及农民对未来灌溉可用地下水资源的看法。
本研究提出，采用新棉花品种的改良种子并提供有关棉花生产技术的更好推广服务，将有助于提高棉花种植效率。在地下水位下降的背景下，向农民传授实际作物需水量并指导他们了解地下水资源可用性，也可能有助于提高效率。© 2014化学工业协会。
