This paper aims to evaluate the capacity of payment, under risk conditions, of the bulk water to the rural producers' users in Jaguaribe basin, State of Ceará. It was considered the aspects concerning whether the irrigation system is public or private, the location of the irrigation district, the level of consumption level and the activities being carried out. The data are primary, gathered by the application of 93 questionnaires to producers in private and public irrigation districts. As method of analysis, it is used the Monte Carlo simulation. We can conclude that for the sample of public and private irrigation farmers, the capacity of payment (CP) for bulk water shows a negative average value and that the majority of these producers cannot afford to pay for the water use, which represents high risk for the activities carried out. Only the irrigation farmers that showed net income (residual or net-back), under deterministic conditions, higher than zero, can pay with large margin or low risk the value of tariff being charged currently by the water governmental agency (Cogerh). Some irrigation farmers do not show any probability of paying the current tariff. The public irrigation farmers show higher CP relatively the private ones. The cattle-raising activity was the one that showed lower risk concerning the tariff charged.
capacity of payment; irrigation stakeholders; risk; bulk water
