Research On The Effect Of Social Capital On Famers' Willingness To Participate In Irrigation Management

Improved irrigation facilities and adequate supply of water resources is the basic guarantee for grain production.Accompanied by the gradually improve of large and small water conservancy facilities,the farmland irrigation business in our country has developed rapidly after the founding of new China.In the recently 20 years,participatory irrigation management model has being implemented in the major irrigation area.Because of the reform has obvious characteristic from top to bottom,so the effect is not very significant.Farmers' participation is generally low.How to guide farmers to actively participate in the irrigation management is the key to improve the participatory irrigation management mechanisms.In this paper,we attempt to discuss how to strengthen famers' sense of participation,increase famers' willingness to participate and promote farmers' cooperation behavior in irrigation from the perspective of social capital,in order to provide theoretical reference and policy recommendations for government.Firstly,based on literature analysis and field research,the paper analyzed and summarized the status and problems of agricultural production,water resources utilization,water conservancy facilities construction and management in Anhui province Pishihang Irrigation Area.Secondly,drawing on social capital theory and related scholars' research,combined with research purposes and the actual situation of research area,the paper constructed evaluating indicator system from social networks,social trust,social norms and social reciprocity.Then the paper measured farmers' social capital using the factor analysis method.Again,based on field research data,the paper made an empirical analysis.It created a binary logistic regression model to discuss the effect of social capital on farmers'willingness to participate in irrigation management reform.Results show that,the trust index,the networks index and the reciprocity index of farmers' social capital all have a significant positive effect on their willingness to participate in irrigation management reform.However,the norms index of social capital is not significant.At the same time,the arable land of family,the water supply efficiency of water infrastructure,the village economic development level,farmers' awareness of the water users association or water cooperatives,the degree of farmers demand on improving the situation of agricultural irrigation water are also the important factors.Finally,based on the research,the paper put forward some measures to improve farmers' willingness to participate and promote the smooth progress of participatory irrigation management system reform in Pishihang Irrigation Area by increasing the stock of social capital,strengthening the agricultural science and technology training and policy advocacy.