Abstract

LOPEZ-ROUDERGUE, Marco A.; JARA-RAMIREZ, Jorge C.  and  VENEGAS-VILLANUEVA, Claudio A.. Economic evaluation of 60 irrigation micro-projects in the Ñuble province, Chile. Tecnol. cienc. agua [online]. 2011, vol.2, n.4, pp.25-35. ISSN 2007-2422.

Sixty irrigation micro-projects were economically evaluated -with areas from 180 m² to 7 000 m², and a total of 10.07 hectares- in three municipalities in Ñuble province, in the Bio-Bio Region of Chile. The purpose of this evaluation is to determine the impact of loans and state subsidies on the projects' profitability. The projects were grouped by area and type of crop. The following were determined for each group: the number of projects, average area, initial investment in the irrigation project, investment per hectare and the irrigation investment as a proportion of the total. The economic evaluation of each project was carried out considering the use of the project's own capital and, alternatively, financing through loans and state subsidies. The economic indicators calculated were Current Net Value (CNV₁₀%) per project and per hectare, and Internal Rate of Return (IRR). The main results indicate that the initial average investment (by surface area range) in the irrigation systems ranges between US$2 000 and US$3 500 per project and between US$6 400 and US$63 800 per hectare. In addition, the economic evaluations indicate that the value of the combined CNV_10% for the 60 projects increased 37% and the average real annual IRR increased from 22.7% to 45.8% when using state financing instead of a project's own capital. This result demonstrates the positive impact of state subsidies on irrigation micro-projects.

Keywords : irrigation projects; rural development; CNV; IRR.