Research On The New Agricultural Management Entities’ Participation In The Management And Maintenance Of Small-Scale Farmland Water Conservancy

As an important rural infrastructure,the operation of small-scale farmland water conservancy needs to go through three links: construction,management and maintenance,and use.As an intermediate link,management and maintenance play a key role in ensuring its effective operation.In recent years,with the rapid development of land transfer and modern agriculture,the production status of small farmers on the basis of household contract responsibility system has changed into the situation where small farmers and scale management farmers coexist.The original relatively homogeneous village membership structure has evolved into a heterogeneous group of farmers.The apparent differentiation of farmers groups has a serious impact on the original cooperative supply foundation of small-scale farmland water conservancy.In order to solve the dilemma of rural public affairs governance,reconstruct an effective small-scale farmland water conservancy governance unit,guiding and supporting new agricultural management entities to participate in the management and maintenance has become an innovative measure for the government to promote the management and maintenance system reform of the small-scale farmland water conservancy.As an important participant of agricultural moderate scale management and the leader of the modern agricultural development,clarify the internal logic of new agricultural management entities’ participation in the management and maintenance of small-scale farmland water conservancy,analyze the practical characteristics and difficulties,establish support mechanism for new agricultural management entities’ participation in the management and maintenance of small-scale farmland water conservancy is of great practical significance to ensure the effective operation of the small-scale farmland water conservancy,promote the comprehensive rural revitalization and accelerate the process of agricultural and rural modernization.Based on the theory of behavioral science to decompose the process of new agricultural management entitie’ participation in the management and maintenance of small-scale farmland water conservancy,constructed the theoretical analysis framework including "management and maintenance willingness-management and maintenance behavior-management and maintenance performance".Then the paper analyzes the management and maintenance institutional evolution,current status of management and maintenance system,main difficulties.Using the micro-survey data of 304 new agricultural management entities and 2 cooperatives from 8 counties(districts)in Anhui province,to describe the current situation of management and maintenance,empirical analysis the influencing factors of management and maintenance willingness,management and maintenance behavior,management and maintenance performance.Finally,it puts forward countermeasures to promote new agricultural management entities’ participation in the management and maintenance of small-scale farmland water conservancy.The main content of this research is divided into five parts.Research content 1: Realistic characteristics of new agricultural management entities’ participation in the management and maintenance of small-scale farmland water conservancyThrough literature review and field investigation,the research divides the patterns of new agricultural management entities’ participation in the management and maintenance of small-scale farmland water conservancy into three types:spontaneous organized management and maintenance,commissioned management and maintenance,and management and maintenance socialized services.Statistics on304 samples show that 77.63% of the respondents’ management and maintenance willingness is at the “relatively high” and “very high” levels.273 samples had management and maintenance inspection behavior,234 samples had management and maintenance investment behavior,accounting for 89.80% and 76.97% of the total samples respectively.Grouping statistics show that the averages of management and maintenance inspection number and management and maintenance investment amount from the pilot areas are significantly higher than the corresponding number from the non-pilot areas.Statistics on the management and maintenance performance show that the implementation of management and maintenance not only brought about the increase of agricultural output and the decrease of irrigation costs,but also benefited other farmers.In addition,this research also summarized the difficulties and obstacles in the management and maintenance from six aspects.Research content 2: Analysis of the influencing factors and their associated relationships and hierarchical structure of the management and maintenance willingnessFirst,the theory of planned behavior is introduced to select independent variables from five aspects: individual characteristics,autonomy needs,behavioral attitudes,subjective behavioral norms,and perceptual behavioral control.Using the ordered Logistic-ISM model to explore the influencing factors of management and maintenance willingness and analysis the associated relationships and hierarchical structure among the significant influencing factors.The results indicate that:expectation of improving the convenience of use,time investment awareness,and capital investment awareness are surface direct factors;family support and village collective support are middle-level indirect factors;the degree of dependence on small-scale farmland water conservancy,the quality requirements for irrigation water,years of land transfer are deep root factors.Research content 3: Analysis of influencing factors of management and maintenance behaviorBased on the theoretical analysis,this part constructs the Double Hurdle model to analyze the influence factors of inspection behavior and investment behavior from three dimensions of motivation,opportunity,and ability.In terms of inspection behavior,the inspection willingness level is 18.63-20.75 times/year;the years of land transfer,knowledge and skill level have significant positive impact on inspection decision,time investment ability has a significant negative effect on inspection decision;the cultivated land scale,the years of land transfer have significant effect on the inspection degree,the degree of organizational support has a significant inhibitory effect on the inspection degree;the regression estimation results of the two types of new agricultural management entities show that the knowledge and skill level has a significant positive impact on the inspection decision,the cultivated land scale has a significant effect on the inspection degree,this is consistent with the previous analysis results.In terms of investment behavior,the investment willingness level is23421.69-30429.64 yuan/year;the years of land transfer,knowledge and skill level have significant positive effect on investment decision;the cultivated land scale,years of land transfer,cultivated land concentration,agricultural production and management investment,disaster situation,supply level of small-scale farmland water conservancy,the agricultural income level have significant positive impact on the investment degree;the regression estimation results of the two types of new agricultural management entities show that the factors that affect investment decision and investment degree are among the aforementioned significant influencing factors;regression estimation results of management and maintenance investment degree of unit area of cultivated land shows that as the cultivated land scale increases,the management and maintenance investment amount of unit area of cultivated land is decreasing.In order to show the complete impact of independent variables on the inspection degree and investment degree,the quantile regression method is used for empirical analysis.Research Content 4: Analysis of influencing factors of management and maintenance performanceBased on the literature review and field investigation,the management and maintenance performance evaluation index system is constructed from the four aspects of facility maintenance dimension,facility use dimension,economic dimension and social dimension.The entropy method is used to assign weight to each evaluation index and calculate the management and maintenance performance score.The results show that the average of integrated performance is 0.366,the larger of the cultivated land scale,the longer of the years of land transfer,equipped with management and maintenance personnel and establish management and maintenance rules,the higher the performance level in each dimension.Based on the social-ecological system framework,the OLS model is used to analyze the influencing factors of management and maintenance performance in different dimensions and integrated performance.The regression estimation results show that the government support level,the cultivated land scale,the years of land transfer,the relationship with villagers,the importance of small-scale farmland water conservancy,and the capital investment have significant positive impact on the management and maintenance integrated performance.The analysis of the average treatment effect of the performance level of 234 investment samples using the PSM model shows that the management and maintenance investment can significantly improve the irrigation effect,drainage effect and cost saving effect.The analysis of the spillover effect shows that management and maintenance investment can benefit 62.56 farmers on average,which is higher than the number of beneficiary farmers in the inspection samples.The analysis of the internal relationships of different management and maintenance performance shows that the improvement of the degree of facility maintenance,the adequacy of irrigation water supply,the facility drainage effect can improve economic performance and social performance.Research content 5: Case analysis of new agricultural management entities’ participation in the management and maintenance of small-scale farmland water conservancyThe management and maintenance context of the two cooperatives have been constructed from four aspects: agricultural production and management development,the changes of agricultural management environment,management and maintenance institution reform,the ability and trust of members.This part shows the development status of the commissioned management and maintenance,management and maintenance socialized services from three aspects of operating mechanism,management and maintenance effect,main difficulties.Based on the analysis of the path to achieve effective management and maintenance,the development suggestions to promote new agricultural management entities’ participation in the management and maintenance of small-scale farmland water conservancy are put forward.Based on the above research,countermeasures are proposed from four aspects:steadily promoting the development of agricultural moderate scale management,building management and maintenance support system,upgrading the management and maintenance pattern;promoting collaborative management and maintenance.