The role of different levels of utilization in economic and energy indicators of irrigated wheat production (A case study: Dehloran township)

To evaluate the role of different levels of exploitation on economic and energy indices of irrigated wheat production in Dehloran city, Ilam province, Iran, this study was conducted and the farms with areas of 1-5, 5-10 and 10-15 ha were surveyed. The sampling method was simple classification and the energy indices including energy ratio, energy efficiency, energy intensity and net energy as well as the economic indices including production cost, gross production value, net income and profit to cost ratio were evaluated. Data analysis of variance and the economic calculations was performed usin SPSS and Excel softwares, respectively. The results of analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference between the treatments at the 1% probability level in term of energy and economic indices. Evaluating the energy indices indicated that for farms with an area of 1-5, 5-10 and 10-15 ha, the energy ratio index was 4.12, 5.20 and 5.77, respectively, while the energy productivity was determined 0.17, 0.21 and 0.23 kg.MJ-1 and the energy intensity was 5.98, 4.81 and 4.44 MJ.kg-1, respectively. The proportion of renewable energies from the total input energy for the studied areas of 1-5, 5-10 and 10-15 ha was stimated to be 17%, 18% and 19% and the proportion of non-renewable energies was 83%, 82% and 81% , respectively. The profit to cost ratio was also evaluated to be 2.16, 2.60 and 2.95, respectively. The results of this study showed that with increasing cultivation area, energy ratio, energy productivity and profit to cost ratio increased and energy intensity and production cost per ha decreased. The best treatment was also determined 10-15 ha. Therefore, it seems that the development and implementation of necessary programs for land consolidation will improve the energy and economic indices and increase the efficiency and productivity in agriculture.