Impacts Of Off-farm Employment On Households' Water-saving Technology Adoption

China is the largest consumer of food in the world,so the topic of food security in China has been the focus of attention.As an essential input in grain production,water resource has posed rigid constraints on China‘s grain production,which is reflected in three aspects: quantity,quality and structure.First,with limited total volume,the utilization of agricultural water resources is under pressure in face of increased industrial and domestic water demand.Second,there is increasing shortage of water since water pollution problems decline the quality of surface and groundwater used for irrigation in grain production.Third,the unbalanced distribution of water and soil resources in China has increased the difficulty for food production.Moreover,the waste of agricultural irrigation water is very serious with extensive utilization of agricultural water resources and the poor efficiency of utilization.So there exist both potential and pressure for water-saving irrigation,and to develop water-saving agriculture by improving the efficiency of water use in food production is imminent.The key to achieve this goal is to promote the agricultural water-saving irrigation technology on the premise of ensuring the smooth agricultural production and ensuring the national food security.However,the promotion process of water-saving irrigation technology in China is relatively slow.In recent years,the government has strengthened the importance and promotion of water-saving irrigation.Increasing the popularization of agricultural technology is inseparable from the final decision maker of technology adoption--the individual response of farmers,while farmers‘ decisions on adoption depend on their households‘ resource endowments.With the reform and opening up,the economic system reform and the modernization of agricultural production,labor force in rural China has been greatly liberated.Plenty of rural laborers migrated towards urban areas and off-farm sectors.The social environment in rural areas and the natural endowment of family resources have been greatly affected.The flexibility of labor allocation enables farmers to response promptly to the requirement change in the labor market and to make the decision to reallocate family labor resource.This has not only changed the quantity and quality of labor resources in farm households,but also changed the income structure,division of labor as well as the capital and risk constraints of farm households.So whether these changes in households‘ resource endowment have posed impact on their adoption of water-saving technology,what the internal interrelationship is and whether farmers‘ recognition,willingness to adopt and off-farm employment are related,these are all questions to be answered in this study.The focus of this research is to explore the impact of off-farm employment on households‘adoption of water-saving technology,as well as its mechanism to work.On the other hand,changes in households‘ resource endowments have influenced water utilization in agricultural production.The increase of off-farm income and development of local economy is good for increasing water-saving inputs,promoting capital-oriented water-saving technique adoptions and enhancing the infrastructure construction of irrigation.However,off-farm employment on the other hand changed the quantity and quality of rural labor resource,resulting in aging and hollowing problem which may hamper the conservation of irrigation systems and may lead to the desolation and function decrease of irrigation systems.Besides,the change of rural labor resource in quantity,quality and flexibility can affect the irrigation management of farm households.There exist significant differences in irrigation water use,management and water use efficiency of farmers embarking off-farm work with diverse degrees.Therefore,this study further focuses on the water use performance of different types of households,and also investigates the role of water-saving technology adoption in the relationship between off-farm employment and faremers‘ water use,to clarify the relationships among off-farm employment,water-saving tehnology adoption and households‘ utilization of irrigation water resource,thus providing empirical proof and reference for China‘s extension of water-saving technology,especially in the arid and semi-arid areas.The results showed that:(1)with the development of urbanization and modernization,the transfer of labor force to non-agricultural sector helps to promote the sdoption of water-saving technology,and it affected the way of farmers‘ adoption.Credit constraints are still barriers to the adoption of water-saving irrigation technology,so the income effect‘ from off-farm employment helps to buffer the capital and credit constraints farmers faced and to promote farmers‘ adoption.Besides,there is a relatively small amount of labor input in technology adoption of rural households with relatively high level of migrated labor,while households with relatively high rate of labors working off-farm locally have less capital investment in the process of water-saving technology adoption.(2)The influence of off-farm work on technology adoption diversifies among different types of water-saving irrigation technologies.The higher proportion of local off-farm labors is related with greater possibility of traditional water-saving technologies such as furrow irrigation.On the contrary,farmers who have a relatively high proportion of migration are more likely to adopt modern technologies like low-pressure pipe irrigation.(3)Farmers who have adopted water-saving technologies differ on the input methods.Households with higher proportion of local off-farm labors tend to increase labor input in water-saving technologies.On the contrary,households with a relatively high proportion of non-agricultural employment are more likely to conduct capital investment on water-saving irrigation.(4)Farmers‘ awareness of water-saving irrigation technology has a significant positive impact on their technology adoption intention and behavior,and plays an important role in the process of technology application and popularization.The transfer of the labor force to the non-agricultural sector has a significant and positive effect on the improvement of famers‘ cognitive level.To further explore the reasons,we find that migration has a significant impact on farmers‘ cognition of the difficulty of adopting water-saving irrigation;farmers with higher off-farm employment level often consider technology easier to adopt.From the perspective of acquiring technical information,farmers with high level of off-farm employment have wider channels of information sources.The results also explain the differences in the impacts of off-farm employment on farmers‘ cognitive level of different types of technologies.Farmers with higher rate of local off-farm employment had greater awareness of furrow irrigation,while those with higher proportion of migration have better understanding of low-pressure pipe irrigation technology.(5)The endowment of household labor resources has significantly affected the adoption behavior.The number of family labors has a significant positive impact on farmers‘ adoption of water-saving irrigation technology,but the increase proportion of children under 16 years‘ old is not conducive to farmers‘ adoption of water-saving irrigation technology.In addition,elder farmers have less investments in either capital or labor in the adoption of water-saving irrigation techniques.(6)Significant discrepancies are shown on irrigation water use performance of different groups of households.The adoption of water-saving technology has moderated the effects of off-farm employment on households‘ irrigation water use efficiency.Higher effiency appears among households who have adopted water-saving technology.This is still true when we divide households into labors migrated and labors working off-farm locally.There is also a significant discrepancy on irrigation water use efficiency between two groups of households,households who have adopted water-saving technology and without migrated laborours,and households who have not adopted any water-saving technology but has laborours working off-farm.Besides,off-farm employment has positive impact on raising households‘ irrigation water use efficiency,and this impact is moderated by the number of furrows those households made on land.Based on these results,this study puts forward the corresponding policy implications.To achieve a better target in the popularization of water-saving irrigation technologies,attention should be paid to households‘ resource endowment.In the promotion process,differentiated promotion services should be provided according to the characteristics of technical requirements of different water-saving technologies,as well as the diversified demands of farmers.Special attention also should paid to the development of information transmission channels,to help farmers improve the cognitive level of water-saving technology.Last but not least,to strengthen government support from perspectives of policy and funding is important for promoting water-saving technology.