Avaliação econômico-financeira do projeto de irrigação Açú Estado do Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the economic and financial feasibility of the Açu Pilot Project in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, as well as its impacts, such as the on level of production, supply structure, income, employment level and utilization of modern inputs. The economic and financial evaluation and the project impacts, were conducted according to the fundamental principal of the incremental analysis. The condition of incrementality is achieved by comparing the benefits and costs "with projec" with "without projec" situatuons. The basic information for the characterization of the actual situation, an indispesable paramneter to project the "without project", was obtained by interviewing the land owers in the project area. The figures for the "with project" situation were estimated considering the project Agricultural Planning and the public investments within project. The parameters relative to investment analyssis, such as cost/benefit rario, net present value and internal rate of return indicated that all proposed farm-models are profitable. However, the farm models that enclose cattle activities are less profitable, probably because of the large amount of investments and the long pay back period. in rthe aggregsted terms, the project was analysed economically and financially. In financial evaluation, the project cash-flow, estimated basewd on market pices, includes taxas and subsidies. The parameters relatives to investments analysis indicate the oroject is feasible, financialy. For econimic evaluyation, in which the value of all benefits and costs were estimated considering the oppurtunity cost, the internal rate of return of 14,1% confirms the project econiomic feasibility. Never the less, a 10 percents decrease in the benefits flow and, simultaneously, an increase of the same amount in the costs flow would reduce the internal rate of return to 9,47%. However, it is important to observe that the economic analysis performed did not include “secundary" and “intangible" benefits, which are very high in a public irrigation project. These kind of benefits were not included due to the normal difficulties in estimating them.