The Nexus of Crop Water Productivity and Sources of Irrigation Water: the Case of Wheat Farms in Egypt and Sudan

EasyChair Preprint no. 11285, version 1

Abstract

This study aims to compare the impacts of irrigation from the Nile and underground water sources on water productivity of wheat for enhanced food security and efficient utilization of water resources in Egypt and Sudan. Endogenous switching regression was applied to data from a purposive random sample of 1,241 wheat growing farms in both countries to eliminate selection bias due to observable and non-observable factors. Results show that only 23% and 3% of wheat farms are irrigated from underground water with an average water productivity of 0.899 and 0.348 kg of wheat per m3 in Egypt and Sudan, respectively. Using underground water significantly increases water productivity by 0.039 kg/m3 in Egypt and 0.072 kg/ m3 in Sudan owing to water efficient techniques and facilities used due to higher cost of pumping underground water compared to irrigation from the Nile. The average amount of pumped water is 2386 and 6076 m3 per hectare during wheat growing season in Egypt and Sudan, respectively. Higher water productivity is significantly attributed to adoption of improved production technologies such as the recommended number and interval of irrigations and the use of recommended input levels in both countries. Membership in cooperatives and large schemes was found to be an important determinant that significantly increases the likelihood to use Nile water in Egypt and underground water in Sudan. Generally, higher wheat yield attained using Nile water compared to underground water in Egypt while no differences were found in Sudan. The study recommends increased utilization of underground water and introduction of water saving techniques especially in the marginal areas of agricultural production in both countries.

Keyphrases: Egypt, Endogenous Switching Regression, Sudan, water productivity, wheat

@Booklet{EasyChair:11285,
  author = {Elrashid Abdallah Fageer and Enas Mohamed Abbas Saleh},
  title = {The Nexus of Crop Water Productivity and Sources of Irrigation Water: the Case of Wheat Farms in Egypt and Sudan},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 11285},

  year = {EasyChair, 2023}}