Abstract

MIRANDA, Omar. Technological development and water use in Argentine agriculture under irrigation. agric. soc. desarro [online]. 2009, vol.6, n.3, pp.277-291. ISSN 1870-5472.

Three elements which influence the dynamic in technological selection of agricultural irrigation systems were studied. In the first place, the level of scarcity of water resources; the availability of water depends both on climate factors that affect superficial and underground aquifers, and on conditions of deficient supply through public networks. One of the paths to face this scarcity is adopting drip irrigation, which allows a more efficient use of water. In the second place, productive restructuring of oases irrigated to the west of the country, induced by habits of consumption of healthy and hedonic foods; the technological package associated with new crops includes drip irrigation, which is part of innovating production techniques that have a greater capital intensity and better productivity by the workforce as common denominator. Finally, the size of the farms; the presence of indivisibilities in irrigation equipment makes their cost per hectare decrease as the surface irrigated increases.

Keywords : Argentina; technological election; agricultural irrigation.

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