I am a Development and Environmental Economist holding a PhD from Bonn University. My current research project called SIMARIS comprises the assessment of strategic investments in sustainable transition options in water, energy and food systems. Main methods are economic growth models, CGE and partial equilibrium model, hydro-economic model, energy planning model. Address: Italy
ABSTRACT Crop water productivity (WP) in irrigated agriculture is a key for food and environmenta... more ABSTRACT Crop water productivity (WP) in irrigated agriculture is a key for food and environmental security, in particular when water becomes scarce, as has been predicted for downstream regions in the Aral Sea basin. The assessment of WP for each field crop is hampered when farmers cultivate several crops at the same time and on the same fields and cannot record water allocation for each crop. Since results from the commonly used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) approach turned out to be unreliable and in some cases even had negative values, we combined a behavioral approach with mixed estimation methods to estimate water allocation for each crop over larger areas and over various years with limited data availability. Unobserved crop specific input data was derived from aggregated data using the mixed estimation method for the case study region Khorezm, located in northwestern Uzbekistan. On the basis of actual water usage, spatial (for different administrative districts in Khorezm) and temporal (for the years 2004–2007) distributions of WP for cotton, wheat, rice, vegetables (including melons), and fruits were estimated and visualized through contour diagrams. All crops, except forage, used much more irrigation water than the recommended amount, with cotton and rice being the highest water consumers. For example, cotton was almost 64% over-irrigated compared to the recommended amounts. Even though rice was cropped on a relatively small share of the total land in Khorezm (less than 10% of the total arable land), about 30% of the total crop irrigation water was applied on rice. WP depends on district or farms’ location declining proportionally to the distance from the water source, due to high conveyance losses and low yields monitored at the tail ends of the irrigation system. Extremely high water losses on both conveyance and field level revealed much scope for water saving by implementing different water-wise options such as lining canals, introducing best water use practices and producing less water consuming crops. This would, in turn, allow increasing crop yields and WP particularly in downstream districts. Furthermore, the comparison of WP among different crops and different districts allowed determining the potential suitability of certain districts for certain crops, which suggests that a more regionally differentiated cropping portfolio, according to water availability, soil quality and similar parameters, would improve overall system WP, and hence sustainability of the agricultural production. KeywordsCrop specific water allocation-Mixed estimation method-Irrigated agriculture-Water saving-Khorezm
ABSTRACT Agriculture plays a pivotal role in the economy of both the Republic of Uzbekistan and t... more ABSTRACT Agriculture plays a pivotal role in the economy of both the Republic of Uzbekistan and the region Khorezm, as substantiated by a contribution of 25% of GDP and 40% of regional income. Since the agrarian sector is the engine of rural development and welfare, the impact of various agricultural policy scenarios on macroeconomic interrelationships and private and governmental earnings was examined using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model developed for the national and the regional level. A total of seven scenarios include the current set-up as well as alternative cumulative and non-cumulative scenarios. Considering the substantial contribution of the agricultural sector to the GDP and regional income and the dominance of cotton production in the agricultural sector of Uzbekistan, non-cumulative scenarios include a partial liberalization of cotton market and an upgrade of the total factor productivities of livestock and main crop production sectors. The national and regional databases included production, final demand, and input–output relations for 20 sectors of the economy, of which seven belonged to the agrarian sector. The establishment of the CGE model for the economies of both the region and the country permitted the comparison of policies on both levels. The model findings suggest, among other findings, that the scenario of the liberalization of the present cotton production policy would not necessarily have an immediate and substantial impact on national and regional income. However, this policy change would substantially decrease government (state budget) revenues on the regional scale while significantly benefiting the private sector due to the enormous reliance of the regional economy, particularly government earnings, on cotton and cotton-related industry sectors. The scenario of increased livestock productivity would yield a higher positive impact on national and regional income than cotton market liberalization and upgrading crop production efficiency. In spite of its negative impact on private revenues at the national scale, it would not only bear much room for increasing private incomes of the rural population, but also would allow a wider implementation of advanced water saving technologies, in particular in remote rural areas, and promote more crop biodiversity, at regional scale. In terms of government earnings, a livestock productivity increase is estimated to have higher impact than a crop-production efficiency increase on the national scale. However, on the regional level, it is the latter option that would produce higher governmental (state budget) earnings. It is argued that the effectiveness of regional development strategies in Uzbekistan would be enhanced by accounting for regional characteristics and the comparative advantages of each region, instead of a blanket approach to all regions in a uniform nationwide program. KeywordsSocial Accounting Matrix-General equilibrium model-Cotton market liberalization-Livestock productivity-National and regional income-Governmental earnings-Private sector-Uzbekistan-The Khorezm region
ABSTRACT Crop water productivity (WP) in irrigated agriculture is a key for food and environmenta... more ABSTRACT Crop water productivity (WP) in irrigated agriculture is a key for food and environmental security, in particular when water becomes scarce, as has been predicted for downstream regions in the Aral Sea basin. The assessment of WP for each field crop is hampered when farmers cultivate several crops at the same time and on the same fields and cannot record water allocation for each crop. Since results from the commonly used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) approach turned out to be unreliable and in some cases even had negative values, we combined a behavioral approach with mixed estimation methods to estimate water allocation for each crop over larger areas and over various years with limited data availability. Unobserved crop specific input data was derived from aggregated data using the mixed estimation method for the case study region Khorezm, located in northwestern Uzbekistan. On the basis of actual water usage, spatial (for different administrative districts in Khorezm) and temporal (for the years 2004–2007) distributions of WP for cotton, wheat, rice, vegetables (including melons), and fruits were estimated and visualized through contour diagrams. All crops, except forage, used much more irrigation water than the recommended amount, with cotton and rice being the highest water consumers. For example, cotton was almost 64% over-irrigated compared to the recommended amounts. Even though rice was cropped on a relatively small share of the total land in Khorezm (less than 10% of the total arable land), about 30% of the total crop irrigation water was applied on rice. WP depends on district or farms’ location declining proportionally to the distance from the water source, due to high conveyance losses and low yields monitored at the tail ends of the irrigation system. Extremely high water losses on both conveyance and field level revealed much scope for water saving by implementing different water-wise options such as lining canals, introducing best water use practices and producing less water consuming crops. This would, in turn, allow increasing crop yields and WP particularly in downstream districts. Furthermore, the comparison of WP among different crops and different districts allowed determining the potential suitability of certain districts for certain crops, which suggests that a more regionally differentiated cropping portfolio, according to water availability, soil quality and similar parameters, would improve overall system WP, and hence sustainability of the agricultural production. KeywordsCrop specific water allocation-Mixed estimation method-Irrigated agriculture-Water saving-Khorezm
ABSTRACT Agriculture plays a pivotal role in the economy of both the Republic of Uzbekistan and t... more ABSTRACT Agriculture plays a pivotal role in the economy of both the Republic of Uzbekistan and the region Khorezm, as substantiated by a contribution of 25% of GDP and 40% of regional income. Since the agrarian sector is the engine of rural development and welfare, the impact of various agricultural policy scenarios on macroeconomic interrelationships and private and governmental earnings was examined using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model developed for the national and the regional level. A total of seven scenarios include the current set-up as well as alternative cumulative and non-cumulative scenarios. Considering the substantial contribution of the agricultural sector to the GDP and regional income and the dominance of cotton production in the agricultural sector of Uzbekistan, non-cumulative scenarios include a partial liberalization of cotton market and an upgrade of the total factor productivities of livestock and main crop production sectors. The national and regional databases included production, final demand, and input–output relations for 20 sectors of the economy, of which seven belonged to the agrarian sector. The establishment of the CGE model for the economies of both the region and the country permitted the comparison of policies on both levels. The model findings suggest, among other findings, that the scenario of the liberalization of the present cotton production policy would not necessarily have an immediate and substantial impact on national and regional income. However, this policy change would substantially decrease government (state budget) revenues on the regional scale while significantly benefiting the private sector due to the enormous reliance of the regional economy, particularly government earnings, on cotton and cotton-related industry sectors. The scenario of increased livestock productivity would yield a higher positive impact on national and regional income than cotton market liberalization and upgrading crop production efficiency. In spite of its negative impact on private revenues at the national scale, it would not only bear much room for increasing private incomes of the rural population, but also would allow a wider implementation of advanced water saving technologies, in particular in remote rural areas, and promote more crop biodiversity, at regional scale. In terms of government earnings, a livestock productivity increase is estimated to have higher impact than a crop-production efficiency increase on the national scale. However, on the regional level, it is the latter option that would produce higher governmental (state budget) earnings. It is argued that the effectiveness of regional development strategies in Uzbekistan would be enhanced by accounting for regional characteristics and the comparative advantages of each region, instead of a blanket approach to all regions in a uniform nationwide program. KeywordsSocial Accounting Matrix-General equilibrium model-Cotton market liberalization-Livestock productivity-National and regional income-Governmental earnings-Private sector-Uzbekistan-The Khorezm region
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