The Effects Of Social Network And Extension Services On Farmers' Adoption Of Water-saving Irrigation Technology

Water-saving irrigation technologies play an important role in saving irrigation water,reducing the risk of drought losses,improving water use efficiency,reducing rural poverty and promoting traditional agricultural transformation.Promotion of water-saving irrigation technology has been the basic support and inevitable choice of ensuring national food security and breaking through resource and environment constraints.However,although water-saving irrigation technology has been promoted for a long time,there are still big obstacles in the implementation process.The technology has not been widely recepted by farmers and has problems of low adoption and low efficiency.As the main channel for farmers to obtain information,social networks and extension services play important roles in farmers' technology adoption.On the one hand,farmers can acquire information through social networks,correct the expected benefits of technology and reduce the risks of technology adoption.On the other hand,extension services emphasize the government's channels of intervention,control and institutionalization of farmer's technology adoption,and play the main role in China's agricultural technology promotion.In reality,social networks and extension services coexist in the process of technology diffusion and present complex relationships.But in previous studies,there was a neglect of the interactive relationship between them.Therefore,under the system of technology promotion in our country,how can farmers get technical information through these two channels? How do social networks and extension services affect farmer's decisionmaking adoption behavior in different stages of water-saving irrigation technology adoption? Can government promotion organizations can use social networks to enhance the effect of technology promotion? And how to design the government promotion service mode that includ in farmer's social network? The answers to these questions help broaden the government promotion service path and further promote farmers' technology adoption.From the dual perspectives of social network and extension service,under the guidance of technology adoption behavior theory,social network theory and agricultural technology promotion theory,based on the systematic review of relevant research,we use 1014 household survey data in Gansu Provinve to analyze the current situations and problems of popularization and adoption of water-saving irrigation technology in sample areas,constructing index system of social network and extension service and then using various mathematical models and methods to explore function of social networks and extension services of farmers' information access,decision-making,technology learning and adoption effectiveness,and proposes recommendations to encourage farmers to adopt water-saving irrigation technology and innovative agricultural technology promotion model,with a view to provide theoretical support and evidence to improve and innovate China's water-saving irrigation technology extension service system.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Through the analysis of the current status and problems of water-saving irrigation technology adoption in the sample area,we found that,farmers' awareness of the scarcity of water resources is strong,most farmers have certain perception of water-saving irrigation technology.But about half of them still think the effect of technology is unsatisfactory;most farmers hold a positive attitude towards the technology,but about 31% of farmers hesitate or reject to adopt the technology.Among sample farmers,214 farmers are nonadopters and 800 are adopters.29.38% of the farmer's adoption rate is 0.4-0.6,accounting for the largest proportion.The main problems are manifested in four aspects for famer's adoption,which are: insufficient government support,limited information acquisition channels,weak awareness of water conservation and some implementation problems.(2)Results show that farmer's social network is in good condition.Among different dimension of social networks,network trust index is highest,followed by network reciprocity,networks closeness and network interaction.The total and four dimensions of social network index of nonadopters are lower than adopters,especially in the dimension of network interaction,network closeness and network reciprocity.69.62% of the farmers received extension services,on an average of 1.3645 times and 1.6754 varieties.Extension services need to be improved and diversified.From all dimensions,extension intensity is below the general level,and other three dimensions are slightly higher than the general level,which have room for improvement.The extension service evaluation of adopters is higher than that of nonadopters,especially in extension intensity and extension quality.(3)The results show that 93.39% of farmers have only two kinds of channels to obtain water saving irrigation technology information.46.94% of farmers mainly rely on social network channels to obtain technical information,36.98% of the farmers choose to rely on the government promotion channel,only 16.08% of the farmers rely on media channel;the farmer's dependence on the agricultural technology information channel and the influencing factors are different.(4)Through the analysis of the influence of social network and extension service on farmer's adoption decision and practical adoption behaviour,the results show that: both social network and extension service can promote farmers' adopting decision;social network and extension service can be adjusted to promote farmers' adopting decision,and for different production scale and risk preference farmer group,the interaction effect appeared significant differences;(5)Social network,extension services both have positive significant impact on farmers' water-saviing tehnology adoption(including adoption area,adoption rate and invest amount);social network have both direct and indirect effect on technology adoption,not only internal dimensions of social network have direct effect on promoting farmers' technology adoption,but social network also can positively affect effectiveness of extension services,thus indirectly contribute to the technology adoption.We also used a Tobit and a Probit model to empirically analyze the effects of learning by doing and social learning on farmer's technology adoption behavior.The results show that: learning by doing and social learning have significant positive impact on farmer's technology adoption;marginal effect analysis shows that,compared with learning by doing,social learning has a greater impact.(6)Considering sample selection bias and endogeneity problems,the propensity score matching method is used to empirically study the effect of two extension service modes on the irrigation water efficiency,we found that the average water use efficiency is 0.723,0.672 and 0.745 of total sample,direct promotion group and demonstration group respectively,which exists a difference under two promotion modes.By using PSM method to exclude individual heterogeneity bias,water use efficiency of the above two group turn into 0.662 and 0.745,existing lager difference.The results indicate that demonstration households play a catalytic role in technology promotion process.Also as an informal organization,social networks can be embedded in the formal organization to make greater significance.