by
Tian Fuqiang and Hu Heping,
Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University
Beijing, 100084, China
Abstract
Different countries are challenged by different issues in agricultural water management. In China, capacity development for agricultural water management means saving water, increasing crop production and farmers' incomes. Two indices can indicate the agricultural water management level, water use efficiency (WUE) and water production efficiency (WPE). The average WUE in China is about 45 percent, while it is 80 percent in USA, and the average WPE in China is 1.0 kg/m3, while it is above 2.0 kg/m3 in USA and Israel. The differences mean the gap in their capacity.
The low performance is because of old and deteriorating infrastructure, lack of modern technologies and skills, wrong incentives, etc. Most irrigation and drainage infrastructure in China were built during the 1950s and have not been receiving any maintenance and appropriate repairs especially during the last two decades. This is partly due to the on-going institutional transition in China where market rules are replacing planned rules.
To ensure food security, reduce poverty and improve farmers' livelihoods, the Chinese Government is developing its capacity for agricultural water management by:
Key words: capacity development, agricultural water management, institutional arrangements, water resources
Introduction
Irrigation and drainage is the lifeline of agriculture which is the foundation of Chinese national economic and social development. The annual grain production in irrigated districts accounts for three-quarters of the national gross grain production and 90 percent of economic crops in the whole country. Also, agriculture is by far the largest consumer of water, accounting for about 70 percent of the total demand. Although the agriculture sector has been urged to reduce water consumption, increase crop production and farmers' incomes, a higher efficiency of agricultural water management has not been achieved. For example, the average water use efficiency (WUE) in China is about 45 percent, while it is 80 percent in the United States of America (USA); and the average water production efficiency (WPE) in China is 1.0 kg/m3, while it is above 2.0 kg/m3 in the USA and Israel. The low performance of agricultural water management indicates a lack of capacity in this field.
Over the last two decades, China has been launching economic and political reform nationwide, which leads to institutional transition from a command to market economy. A market economy requires decentralized management, as opposed to centralized management, in a command economy. This holds true for agricultural water management. To deal with the urgent and new situation, it is necessary to reinforce capacity development for agricultural water management by introducing new organizations, establishing new laws and policies, changing financing methods, and providing more trained and educated professionals, etc.
Issues in China's agricultural water management
China is an ancient oriental civilized country with more than 5 000 years of development history. Agricultural civilization has been responsible for dominant actions in the long term history evolution. However, China's agricultural water management is now challenged by several issues.
The physical constraints
The water resources, in terms of per capita, was only 2 200 m3 in China, being one-quarter of the world average, and the available water per unit area of cultivated land accounts for only 80 percent of world mean area. The situation is aggravated by uneven areal distribution. As Figure 1 shows, the territory of China can be divided into perennial, unsteady and supplementary irrigation zones, on the basis of the annual precipitation and the requirements of the agricultural development on irrigation and drainage. The perennial (where precipitation is less than 400 mm) and unsteady irrigation zone (with over 400 mm and less than 1 000 mm of annual precipitation, strongly influenced by monsoon) cover more than 60 percent of the total territory.
The competition for water for industrial and domestic uses
During the past two decades, China has experienced a rapid economic development. The available water for agriculture is reduced by increasing industrialization and continuous urbanization because urban and industrial users are usually given priority in the allocation of scarce water resources. For example, the Miyun Reservoir (the biggest reservoir in North China) used to supply water for irrigation. As of 1990, it can no longer meet the farmers' needs due to the increasing industrial and domestic water demand. According to one study, about 71 billion m3 of water resources were transferred from the agricultural sector to the industrial and domestic sectors during 1980–1997. Despite declining water supplies, agricultural sector faces the task of expanding food production in order to meet the requirements of an increasing population.
Operation and maintenance of irrigation and drainage infrastructure
Most irrigation and drainage infrastructures in China were built during 1950s–1960s and financed by the Government. These great achievements have also been attained through the hard work of hundreds of millions of farmers inspired by collectivism. However, since about 1980, the Government concentrated on the industry sector and farmers on individual issues. Irrigation and drainage infrastructures do not receive appropriate maintenance and the situation is aggravated by the on-going institutional transition from planned economy to market economy in China. The property rights of the infrastructure belong to the central government which financed its construction but will not allocate enough money for its maintenance under the new circumstances. The water fees collected by the irrigation district agency can only partially cover the costs of routine operation of the infrastructure, and the farmers without infrastructure property rights do not have enough money nor the right incentives for its maintenance.
Legislation and institutional arrangements
According to Chinese water law, the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) is charged by the responsibility for unified management of water resources. The seven major river basin commissions are agencies of MWR which have the function of administering water in the relevant river basin. The local water resources authority comprises four levels i.e. the provincial, prefecture, county bureaus and the village (town) water management stations which assume the functions and responsibilities of local water administrative management within their respective jurisdictions. The management bureau (irrigation district agency) is often assigned the functions and responsibilities for water allocation and infrastructure maintenance within the irrigation district which, after buying water resources from river basin commission or local authority, sells the water to farmers. This system of operation reduces the enthusiasm of irrigation district agencies for saving water. Furthermore, the farmers are often charged water fee by area rather than by volume, which is not conducive to saving water by farmers.
Finance
In general, the irrigation district agency is the key organization for agricultural water management but is not a financially autonomous entity. In addition to collecting water fees, the irrigation district agency must be financed by the government, especially for construction and maintenance of infrastructures. In fact, the ability to fund integrated agricultural water management (in its broadest sense, including monitoring, planning, design and construction, operation and maintenance of both large and small scale irrigation and drainage projects) has depended to a large degree on central government. However, in tackling the challenge of agricultural water management, the scale of investment is massive and requires significantly more than the current level of investment.
To date agriculture has been a rather unprofitable sector. Its production is highly risky and to a great extent determined by climate. Therefore, it can hardly attract private capital.
Figure 1. Schematic drawing of the irrigation zones in China
Capacity development for agricultural water management in China
There is a general consensus among policy-makers in the developing world and aid agencies that a lack of capacity is constraining the development and improvement of irrigated agriculture as a means of reducing poverty, increasing food security and improving livelihoods of both rural and urban populations. This is the situation in China. To meet the challenge and the competition from other sectors including the foreign sectors, the Chinese Government is reforming its management policy to promote capacity development for agricultural water management.
Rehabilitation of existing agricultural water infrastructure
In China, most agricultural water projects were built in the 1950s–1970s and are poorly maintained and partly destroyed, and therefore provide low quality service. The low quality service and poor operation and maintenance mutually weaken each other. This accelerates the deterioration of the infrastructure and seriously reduces capacity for agricultural water management. In fact, if there is no properly working infrastructure, good management cannot be achieved. Therefore, the Chinese Government launched irrigation area rehabilitation project in 1998 and to date 255 large irrigation districts have been financed by the project. The total capital invested has reached 15.2 billion RMB. Altogether the total length of lined channel is 6 300 km, the number of rehabilitation facilities is 45 000, the area of rehabilitated irrigated land is 2 000 million hectares, and the annual water saving capacity is 12 billion m3. This has greatly improved agricultural water management.
Reconstruction of agricultural water management institutional system
The agricultural water management system in China is mainly government run, that is to say it is the centralized management system, in which farmers have little possibility to claim their rights. It is time to transfer administration from government to farmers and establish a decentralized management system, of which a water user association (WUA) will be of great importance. With the support and guidance of the World Bank and international aid agencies, the pilot project for water user participant irrigation management have been widely applied in China in recent years. WUA is established based on canal system, and is responsible for operation and maintenance of the end level irrigation system. For example, all the farmers which are served by sublaterals of each main lateral are organized into a WUA. At the same time, the irrigation district agency is responsible for the operation and maintenance of main canals and main laterals. WUA, which is an Autonomous Corporation, buys water from the agency and sells it to farmers. Under a proper financial compensation and water charge system, WUAs can attract farmer participation and run efficiently. The Chinese Government accelerates the process by passing laws, policies, training and education of WUA members.
More than 5 000 WUAs have been established which govern nearly 2.67 million hectares of irrigated areas. Stakeholder participation in management has obtained distinct performance experience through many years of practice. Firstly, motivating all farmers to maintain and manage water projects. Secondly, decreasing many redundant processes, avoiding various unreasonable burden and fees and protecting farmers' benefits. Thirdly, bringing down the water prices and raising water use efficiency. Ultimately, reducing dissensions on water use and promoting water management by charging according to volume of water consumption and door to door collection of fees from farmers.
Reform of water charge system
For the management of the end level irrigation system in most irrigation districts, agricultural water facilities are managed in a complex manner. Traditionally, the village leader or the water officer of the village committee is responsible for the village's water management system and for the collection of water fees from individual farmers. However, water charges in rural regions often pass through several administrative levels and are combined with various other levies of the local governments. Mismanagement and asymmetric information have frequently caused much bad conduct such as open access and free-riders. A lot of unreasonable fees have been extorted from farmers. As a result, Irrigation district agencies frequently have difficulty in obtaining their share of the charge. From the farmers' point of view, there has been no linkage between the quality of irrigation district service and the fees paid. Indeed, high charges, low service quality and unclear management accountability have discouraged farmers from paying the charges. So, the irrigation water charge mode must change from being collected by government agencies to collection by autonomous organizations; likewise the charge for the actual volume of water consumed instead of by the land cultivated.
To do this a proper organization and water quantity measurement system are required. The established WUAs can replace the Government in the collection of water fees. The water measurement system is often divided into two parts: The irrigation district agencies can establish automatic monitoring system along main canals and main laterals according to WUAs regions; and the WUAs can maintain water measure system along sublaterals or farmland canals according to farmers' parcels. Because of the wrong incentive of the water charge system, the irrigation district agency does not pay attention to the water measurement system. So the establishment of the new water charge system has a long way to go.
Encourage crop production and enrich farmers
Low incomes from crops result in low incentives for investment in agriculture and its related issues including agricultural water management. Farmers have no money and no incentive for infrastructure construction and its proper operation and maintenance. This greatly weakens the capacity of agricultural water management. In addition, the low incomes and lack of capacity will reinforce each other and further reduce the capacity for sustainable development. The Chinese Government is now adopting several measures to encourage crop production and enrich farmers. For example, the “feedback” theory for agriculture from industry is proposed and applied by the Chinese central Government. The agricultural tax exemption policy began from the northeast provinces of China in 2004, and has now been put into force in most provinces. Planted areas are protected to guarantee output, the direct subsidy system is completed to financially support farmers and agricultural production, and a compensation mechanism is established to reimburse grain production regions. More financial expenditure has been allocated to irrigation construction and other public projects in grain production areas through irrigation area rehabilitation project. The “feedback” policies will eventually create an enabling environment for capacity development for agricultural water management.
Promote the establishment of water rights and water market
Due to the lower margin price of agricultural water, it is often transferred to the industrial and domestic sectors, which prevailed in many industrialized countries and now prevails recently in China. However, we have no appropriate water right system in China, so agricultural water is often transferred without any fee. This adds difficulty to agricultural water management. Also, for WUAs to be successful, they need to be vested with clear water rights to give the right incentives for improvement of the irrigation system. Now Chinese Government is struggling to ascertain initial water rights, establish the whole water rights system and water market. If this is done, capacity development for agricultural water management can increase the standard of water saving; the saved water can be sold for money, and then the money can further facilitate capacity development. Capacity development and water market can promote each other. This system already works in some pilot provinces or prefectures.
Discussions on capacity development for agricultural water management
Institutional arrangement including water pricing system, especially the establishment of WUA, may be the key element in capacity development, but they must be carefully devised. From China's experiences, the problems of agricultural water management are centralized administration (so farmers have no access to participate in the decisions), and improper water charge system (both irrigation district agencies and farmers have no incentive to save water resources). To solve these problems, the establishment of WUAs is a feasible way, but WUA is an innovation for China, whether it can work depends on the suitability of this arrangement for Chinese culture. The formal rules can work only if they are compatible with the informal rules. Different countries have different cultures and different informal rules. So the WUAs in different countries will take different forms.
For China, centralized management has a long history and people, especially farmers, have little consciousness and ability for participatory management. So the establishment of WUAs is mainly driven by the Government. This is not an induced institutional transition but an imposed one. In 1995, Xu investigated the situation of the Weining Irrigation District, located in Ningxia Autonomous Region in Northwest China. The results show that agricultural water management for nearly all villages is handled by the village leader. In 2001, WUAs are established for nearly half of the villages. This is mainly due to policy and interventions of the higher level government. Therefore, for many WUAs, farmers cannot take part in the decisions on water allocation, water pricing and water charge and as the WUAs are not really Autonomous Corporations, their incomes are independent of their performance, and the managers of WUAs have no proper incentives yet. The situation is aggravated by wrong water pricing system. The agricultural water price in China is far lower than its cost and the majority of water fees collected by WUAs is for buying water from the irrigation district agency. The WUAs do not have enough money for their running including salaries, operation and maintenance, etc. which force them to seek financial support from the Government. The reform of the water pricing system depends on farmers' incomes. If farmers are poor, they cannot afford higher agricultural water prices and hence the agricultural water fees will not be sufficient to cover the costs. Generally, the establishment of WUAs can be successful only if the reform and policy is consistent.
In essence, agricultural water management is an integrated system concerning individuals (such as stakeholders, farmers, local professionals, engineers, agriculturalists, politicians, etc.), organizations (such as water user associations, research groups, government extension agencies, private companies, etc.); and enabling environment. It is well known that management is system engineering. One measure can work only if all the related measures work, and this effect can be recursive. For example, measure A may be one of the related measures for B. Inversely, measure B may also be one of the related measures for A. The complex characteristic makes the problem difficult. In some cases, we need to devise some new institutional arrangement.
Nevertheless, for a long time people used to construct irrigation and drainage infrastructures to meet the increasing demand on agriculture. The concept of capacity development is useful for encouraging people to deal with new issues in a more integrated manner.
Conclusions
In China, capacity development for agricultural water management is focusing on saving water, increasing crop productions and farmers' incomes. It is part of the holistic policies for agriculture and water resources management.
In the background of institutional transition from planned economy to a market economy, the core of capacity development is rebuilding the right incentive system for all the stakeholders involved in agricultural water management.
China's approach for capacity development is centered on the farmer, including agricultural tax exemption, direct subsidy system, establishment of WUAs, etc. Farmers constitute the majority of the population in China, the operation and maintenance of infrastructure relies heavily on farmers. The most important components for capacity development are training, right incentives and capable farmers.
Although most policies such as agricultural tax exemption and direct subsidy system are nearly nationwide, capacity for agricultural water management is mainly developed through projects, including the rehabilitation of China's irrigation projects and World Bank loan projects, for individual irrigation districts. This is because capacity development must be carried out in an integrated manner which requires a lot of money, time and effort. To ensure that measures are implemented for individual irrigation districts is an easy way to go about this.
Outside support is important for capacity building. This is because farmers can hardly be organized into WUAs spontaneously and the private sector is not willing to invest in agricultural water infrastructure.
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