Water Conservation Alternatives for California Agriculture: A Microeconomic Analysis

摘要

Crop-water production functions for corn, cotton, and tomatoes grown in California are estimated. Profit maximizing levels of water, based on the production functions, are estimated and compared with common practice, yield maximizing, and other levels. Although the difference between common practice and profit maximizing levels of water is only a small proportion of farm applications, the difference would likely represent enought to meet the needs of a large city. The production functions are also used to show that shortrun profits are sharply increased if irrigation field efficiencies are increased.