Farm Management in Crop Production Under Limited Water Conditions in Balkh, Afghanistan

Abstract

Water is the main limiting factor in crop production in the hot and dry summer period within arid and semiarid regions such as Balkh region, Afghanistan. Due to lack of irrigation water infrastructure and information about how much water should be applied at the field level given different levels of water availability, the individual farmer lacks information about the sustainability of the water supply, crop production, and how much net income he would get from this production. Thus, the main research question is how to find ways to optimize the use of water given different shortages in water availability at the farm level in Balkh, Afghanistan. The research uses a linear programming (LP) model to assess the economic impact of net returns given four different water availability scenarios at the farm level. The main result among others is that water value increases as the water availability decreases as expected. Water is binding in all scenarios, and harvesting labor is the most used input as water, and other resources/inputs become scarcer in the farmer’s mixed crop production.