| Abstract: | ABSTRACT: The importation of water into an existing irrigated agricultural area raises many questions about farm profitability and suggests many adjustment alternatives open to farmers. In particular, how will farmers respond to a new additional water source of differing cost, availability, and quality? Mathematical programming models of representative irrigated farms in Pinal County, Arizona, were developed to project agricultural adjustments to new water from the Central Arizona Project now under construction. The techniques developed have broad application to similar water resource projects involving the conjunctive use of multiple water sources of differing qualities. Regional agricultural activities are described by defining and modeling multiple representative farms which account for economies due to size and different water sources of differing price and quality. Various management schemes can be evaluated by properly selected representative farm models. |
