Irrigation Water Price And Farmer's Bearing Capacity Of Seasonal Shortage Of Water In South Irrigation District

It is the inevitable requirement of the development of the future agriculture and social economy to increase the utilization rate and productive efficiency of agricultural water resources in China. As an important measure of water resources management, water price policy has some irreplaceable functions to other mechanisms. Farmer is the main bearing party of irrigation water price, and the bearing capacity is the important factor which must be considered in the progress of water price reform and policy formulation. Taking irrigation water price and farmer's bearing capacity of Seasonal Shortage of Water in South Irrigation District as the study object, the rationality of irrigation water cost, the farmer's bearing capacity and the stakeholders' analysis in the reform are mainly studied. The main contents and conclusions are as follows:(1) Based on the theories such as externalities, ecosystem service and agricultural multifunctionality, the external effects of irrigation and drainage system and irrigated farmland ecosystem were analyzed, the positive externalities of irrigation water supply service and irrigation farming were discussed, and the influences and internalization methods of the said externalities are analyzed. Based on these aspects, rationality of irrigation water cost is studies. Results show that irrigation water supply service and the irrigation farming are productive activities with significant positive externalities, irrigation and drainage installations and agricultural infrastructure are with the characteristics of public goods, and the irrigation district management units should be defined as standard public institutions. The establishment of irrigation water price need full consideration of the influences which are made by the positive externalities of irrigation water supply service and irrigation farming, and fanner's bearing capacity of irrigation water price is the important factor which must be considered during the reform and the policy formulation.(2) The project of "farmer's bearing capacity of irrigation water price" is studied from the two aspects of farmer's economic and psychological factors, which represent farmer's ATP (Ability To Pay) and WTP (Willingness To Pay). The reform can be carried on successfully only on the condition that farmer has ATP and WTP simultaneously. A set of quantitative investigation methods of farmer's ATP are put forward, mainly including ELES (Extended Linear Expenditure System) model of ATP level classification, factor analysis method of synthetically evaluation of ATP and dynamic analysis method of the adjustment of irrigation water price standard. In Wu'an Irrigation District, there are 6.1% farm-households with "no ATP" for annual irrigation water price, 9.7% with "somewhat ATP" and 84.2% with ATP, the structures of invests and outputs to paddy have certain differences to farm-households group with different ATP but the disbursements of present water fee have no significant difference. The current water fee has not surpassed farmer's economy bearing capacity, and all groups with different ATP have the certain spaces to raises the price.(3) The subjective WTP is the reflection of the external ATP, and the CVM (Contingent Valuation Method) of evaluating the farmers' WTP for agricultural water price is put forward, which mainly includes following several steps: the earlier period preparation and the theory supposition, the questionnaire and the investigation implementation process design, the CVM investigation and the data processing and so on. The dichotomous-choice and open-ended questions survey results of Wu'an Irrigation District show that majority of farmers approved to the tenth branch canal transformations projects but with high request to the project quality and the services. After the transformation, the reasonable water fee standard scope is 35-40 Yuan/Mu.(4) Based on the idea of unifying the thought and method of PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) into the CVM study, the PR-CVM (Participatory Rural-Contingent Valuation Method) of evaluating the farmers' WTP for agricultural water price is put forward. PR-CVM is mainly a kind of study mentality and frame, and how to utilize it flexibly in practice is the key. The payment card type question is optimized as the WTP guidance technology of the application of PR-CVM in the Wu'an Irrigation District. The farmers' WTP for agricultural water price is 36.03-64.01 Yuan/Mu, which is considered by the fanners as the reasonable price standard scope at present with the mean value of 39.15 Yuan/Mu. The ATP and WTP does not have remarkable uniform rule and different ATP group farmer's WTP bids don't have the remarkable differences.(5) From the aspect of stakeholder, the projects of irrigation water price reform and management are studied. Though carrying on launching, participation and design with the motion strategy of "from bottom to top", establishing a reasonable mechanism of interest correlation, assigns and compensates between different stakeholders is the foundation of irrigation water price reform implement The main stakeholders have different influences on the irrigation water price reform development, but the two most essential stakeholders of the farmer water users and the irrigation water supply operators take the vital places. Participatory irrigation management (PIM) is the optimal pattern in the irrigation water price reform and the irrigation management reform. Depending on interior strengths, overcoming internal weaknesses, using exterior opportunities, avoiding exterior threats, formulating corresponding development strategy of irrigation area is not only the foundation of irrigation management reform, but also the key of irrigation water price reform implement...