A farmer-centered analysis of irrigation management transfer in Mexico

With the rewritten Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution and the National Water Law of 1992, Mexico embarked on an ambitious program of transferring the management of many irrigation systems to local user groups, primarily farmers. By 1996, 372 water user associations had been formed to control water delivery to 2.92 million hectares. During this time water prices increased by 45-180% and government O and M subsidies were eliminated. Limited economic analysis of stakeholder impact has been conducted of the irrigation management transfer (IMT) program. This research effort pilots a partial budget analytical framework for analyzing the social benefits and costs of IMT. Two irrigation modules near Culiacan, Sinaloa were selected as case studies. Results reveal that even with significantly higher water prices, water users have invested more in their systems than during the pre-IMT period and consider their overall irrigation costs to be lower. Lower transaction costs in the post-IMT period explain the majority of these cost savings. Efforts to quantify incremental benefits and costs associated with IMT at the module and district levels proved difficult given the unavailability of reliable, time series information.