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Nature, Economy and Society pp 133–161Cite as

Energetics of Irrigation Under Surplus Rainfall Conditions

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Abstract

Energy value (use-value) of irrigation under surplus rainfall conditions, like all parts of the state of West Bengal with an annual rainfall of 1000 mm or more, represents the value of unsaved rainwater, an ecosystem function, to the farmer-cultivator for meeting the water requirements of the planted crops, an ecosystem service. In such situations, substantial run-off results in considerable use of labour and material towards irrigation, even if the seasonal effective rainfall is more than the potential evapotranspiration (PET) or the crop water coefficient of a water-intensive crop like paddy.

This chapter uses the method of energy analysis for computing the energy cost of various irrigation practices across 2281 plot-season-crop combinations in 38 selected blocks of West Bengal spread over five agro-climatic zones, three seasons, and three size-classes for the agriculturally normal year 2004–2005. In tehsil/blocks with rainfall over and above the PET for kharif and winter seasons together, average per hectare seasonal energy values were: 0.697 for kharif, 4.3 for winter, and 2.96 for summer for all plot sizes (in barrel of oil equivalent). There was a fall in the average per hectare cost with an increase in size-class in all seasons. Further, for each size-class, per hectare energy cost remained highest for winter, followed by summer and then kharif, which is an expected result.

The author wishes to thank Debobroto Ghosh for the navigational assistance in traversing through the dataset and the advices towards adopting reasonable and realistic assumptions and also to the members of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE) community, especially Kanchan Chopra, Purnamita Dasgupta, and Seema Purushothaman, for their comments on the draft and the participants of the session on ‘Towards Green and Sustainable Socio-Economic Systems: Including Ecological Agriculture, Energy Efficient Industry and Sustainable Urban Habitats’ in ‘Nature, Economy and Society: Understanding the Linkages’, Sixth Biennial Conference of INSEE, October 20–22, at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), Hyderabad. The chapter has been partially sponsored by the project titled Socio-economic Study of Rainfed Agriculture and Low Input Animal Husbandry in India conducted by CSSP-Economic Research Unit at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As per the District Management Unit (DMU) report for 2010–2011 on physical assets, water conservation and water harvesting had received the highest (20.27 %) committed expenditure.

  2. 2.

    This is the last agriculturally normal year for which the dataset was available for academic use in 2011, the year of the conference where the paper was presented.

  3. 3.

    H T Odum had worked tirelessly in establishing energy values of various aspects of the biosphere, including biotic and abiotic resources and ecosystem services, including rainfall (Odum 1984); our approach differs from Odum’s considerably. For a critical analysis, see, Jones (1989, p. 345).

  4. 4.

    The data difficulties had been noted by the Committee on Pricing of Irrigation Water (Planning Commission1992) as well. Even with efforts at the highest official level it had to depend mainly on the information obtained during the team’s visits. Even then, the quality and the extent of data coverage were not to its satisfaction (1992, p. 10).

  5. 5.

    P F Chapman and F Roberts, 1983, Metal Resources and Energy, Butterworths, cited in Common (1995, p. 210).

  6. 6.

    For a critical evaluation of the data source, see Nawn (2013). The directly used human labour data (under all irrigation types) was taken from data-fields (DFs) 12–19, 22–25 from record type (RT) 710 with irrigation in DF 8 (Operations), with or without the use of associated machine (DF 30–33) or animal (DF 26–29), for each PSC. RT 440 provided information on the types of owned machines (DF 9–12) like capacity, age, and remaining life. RT 742 furnished data on the material consumed directly or in the maintenance for owned machines, while human labour data for maintenance was taken from RT 740. RT 743 provided the data on hired-out machines.

  7. 7.

    This information was obtained from the fieldwork, through the discussions with the enumerators of CCS.

  8. 8.

    Let the value in construction/purchase of the asset be V 0, and at year t, it is V t , with t taking the value from 1 to n. Considering uniform rate of depreciation r, V t  = (1 − r)t·V 0. As n becomes large, (1 − r)t approaches zero, and so does V t . Typically, use of the machine ceases much before V t equals or even be close to zero. Doering III (1980: 11) assumed reliable life to be 82 % for farm machinery and buildings. Typically, with r = 0.08, at t = 20, (1 − r)t takes the value of 19 %. Further, as the average life span of pumping sets (code: 6502) was 19 years, this particular value of r was assumed. Depreciation or the change in capital stock due to wear and tear for the ith year was taken as V t−1 − V t  = r·(1 − r)t-1.Vot was obtained from RT 440 (see, fn 6 above). Calculations of V 0 for different machines along with the coefficients for conversion are available from the author on request.

  9. 9.

    Annual consumption data against each machine were used instead of the monthly data in order to minimise the possibility of errors in reporting as it is usually conducted through visual observations instead of actual measurement.

  10. 10.

    In 2004–2005, West Bengal stood 6th in the yield rank for paddy at 2574 kg/ha, accounting for the highest share in total area under paddy in the country (13.79 %) and production (17.9 %; Table 4.6 (b) in DES 2007). In the CCS data, only 231 parcels reported eight types of problems together, including animal damage (53), drought (47), disease (46), flood (22) and seepage from irrigation (22). Further, the harvested percentage was at least 95 % for 2145 PSCs out of 2281, and 2050 of them recorded 100 %.

  11. 11.

    Detailed per hectare energy values (in MJ/ha) of different irrigation practices for selected blocks (CU = PET) across seasons and CCS size-classes in West Bengal for 2004–2005, are available from the author on request.

  12. 12.

    Leaving aside the very large energy costs corresponding to tehsils 20, 32, and 47, which requires further inquiry for explanation, average irrigation costs are 0.697 BOE for kharif, 2.145 BOE for winter and 1.29 BOE for summer.

  13. 13.

    It is the hired-in labour against which corresponding hired-out labour takes place, between the owners of such labour.

  14. 14.

    Of the 140.86 million hectares (Mha) net area sown (Gross Cropped Area—area sown more than once), (net) irrigated area is 62.29 Mha (44.22 %). Of the Gross Cropped Area of 195.83 Mha, gross irrigated area is 87.26 Mha (44.56 %) in India. (Computed from Table 14.1: Agricultural land by use in India, DES 2010). Planning commission (2008, p. 25) had pegged the share at 60 %.

  15. 15.

    Unstarred question no 3590, answered on April 26, 2012 in the Parliament, by Minister of State in the Ministry of Water Resources.

  16. 16.

    A survey of more than 100 ponds under the NREGS, conducted just after the monsoon season (October–December) in 2010, had found that 88 % did not have any water. During the previous 4–5 years, it was these ponds on which 74–89 % of the total expenditure under NREGS was spent (Bhattacharya 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Policy Studies, TERI University, New Delhi, India

    Nandan Nawn

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  1. Observer Research Foundation, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Nilanjan Ghosh

  2. Department of Economics, Goa University, Panaji, Goa, India

    Pranab Mukhopadhyay

  3. Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

    Amita Shah

  4. Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Manoj Panda

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Nawn, N. (2016). Energetics of Irrigation Under Surplus Rainfall Conditions. In: Ghosh, N., Mukhopadhyay, P., Shah, A., Panda, M. (eds) Nature, Economy and Society. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2404-4_7

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