Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture No. 2/10
The relative efficiency of water use in Bangladesh agriculture
Nasima Tanveer Chowdhury
Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden
Abstract
This study examines whether water use is efficient in Bangladesh
agriculture compared to other inputs. As agriculture is the major water
using sector and water is most scarce during winter due to low annual
rainfall, the government here runs many irrigation projects. Recently
Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) leased out these projects to
various water user groups for maintenance and expenditure recovery. This
study estimates a translog production function for boro rice in the 7
hydrological regions and derives marginal products of various inputs.
Production functions are estimated using data collected by International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on expenditures of agricultural inputs and
returns on investment from a nationally representative sample of 1928 farm
households from 64 districts of Bangladesh. Results show that irrigation
water use is less efficient compared to other agricultural inputs, like
land, labour, fertiliser and ploughing with power tiller.
Keywords: relative efficiency, marginal product, production function, irrigation water, boro rice, Bangladesh agriculture
JEL: Q13, Q25
Vol. 49 (2010), No. 2: 147-164