Has Property Rights Reform of China’s Farmland Water Facilities Improved Farmers’ Irrigation Efficiency?—Evidence from a Typical Reform Pilot in China’s Yunnan Province

Yiyu Feng, Ming Chang, Erga Luo and Jing Liu ()
Additional contact information
Yiyu Feng: Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, No. 12 Zhongguancun South Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China
Ming Chang: Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, No. 12 Zhongguancun South Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China
Erga Luo: School of Public Administration, Zhejiang University, No. 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou 310013, China
Jing Liu: Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, No. 12 Zhongguancun South Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-27

Abstract: China is implementing a pilot project to reform the property rights of farmland water facilities to solve the serious problems of chaotic end-of-pipe governance and inefficient irrigation from farmers. Based on microscopic research data of farm households in a typical pilot in Lu Liang County, Yunnan Province, in China, this study uses the Tobit model, and SEM was used to explore the impact of property rights reform on the irrigation efficiency of farmers and the potential mechanism paths. We further analyzed the differences in governance logic and irrigation efficiency between the two property rights models of “multiple cooperative governance” and “private contract governance” formed after the reform. The findings are as follows: (1) Compared with nonreformed areas, reformed areas have a higher promotion of adoption of water-saving technologies and a better quality of facility maintenance, which significantly contributes to irrigation efficiency, but farmers’ perception of water scarcity negatively affects irrigation efficiency; (2) there are differences between the “multiple cooperative governance model” and “private contract governance model” in terms of the mechanism paths to improve irrigation efficiency, resulting in different focuses between the two models, in which the former one has better irrigation efficiency while cutting off some of the farmers’ benefits and the latter benefits more farmers while losing some of the irrigation efficiency. Finally, this study recommends that China should continue to promote the reform of farmland water property rights while focusing on promoting water conservation technologies, improving the quality of facility maintenance and facility water supply capacity, enhancing farmers’ awareness of water scarcity, and implementing a more water-efficient “multiple cooperative governance model”. The results of this study provide a model with Chinese characteristics for developing property rights policies and governance models for farmland water facilities in developing countries.

Keywords: water facilities property rights; irrigation efficiency; multiple cooperative governance model; private contract governance model; Yunnan province; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/2/275/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/2/275/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:2:p:275-:d:1044795

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().