Effect of Using Laser Land Leveling Technique on the Demand for Irrigation Water for Wheat Crop for Agricultural Season 2016-2015 Empirical Study on the National Program for the Development of Wheat in Iraq

Abstract

Wheat is considered the first main crop in terms of the cultivated area allocated to winter crops and its importance of consumer pan-the population in Iraq. The production of wheat crop in developing countries, including Iraq, characterized by insufficient domestic product to fulfill the need of demand that increasing for it, in spite of resources and conditions natural are available to upgrade to the increase it as it in the developed countries, due to low productivity of the crop because of failure of production methods and do not use the technologies modern of production. The objective of the research is to study impact laser land leveling as a new technique on the demand for irrigation water for wheat crop depending on cross sectional sample for the agricultural season 2015-2016 in five governorates covered by the national program for the development of cultivation of wheat in Iraq ( Al-Najaf, Al-Qadisiya, Kerbela, Wasit, and Baghdad ), the total sample size was 384 farmers covered by the program, 192 farmers who have used laser land leveling technique, 192 farmers who have used traditional methods in land leveling. The research used duality theory to estimate the individual demand functions on the demand for irrigation water. The results showed that the laser land leveling technique contribute to reduce the demand for irrigation water by 89.7%. The research recommended that could take advantage of irrigation water excess achieved by farms that are used laser land leveling technique in introducing new areas in the production process to achieve self-sufficiency of wheat crop.