Perfil e avaliação da capacidade de pagamento de água bruta para irrigação dos produtores privados da Bacia do Jaguaribe, Ceará

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the socioeconomic status and ability to pay for private irrigation farmers that are users of bulk water from the Jaguaribe basin of Ceará. The study area is the Jaguaribe basin in the state of Ceará. It was used primary data gathered through the application of 37 questionnaires. The socioeconomic conditions are analyzed by using the method of exploratory survey and the ability to pay is measured by the residual method. The results suggest that the producer profile is defined by an average age ranging from medium to high, low level of education, more than six years of experience and most of them live outside of the farm. It was observed also that there is a high participation of family members working in the farm and almost all of them does not have received farm technical assistance. More than a half of the producers received some kind of training, and the majority of them are not engaged in associative activities. In addition, almost three quarters of the producers own the title of land tenure while a large number of them develop multiple activities (crop and livestock); the areas with areas ranging from 11 and 50 hectares are predominant and they use wasteful water use techniques. The ability to pay for the group of private irrigation farms as a whole is $ 111.29 per 1000 m3. By subgroup, defined by the main activity of earning income, the livestock farmers emerge in the first place regarding the ability to pay, followed by grain producers and, the last, by the fruit growers.