Study On The Utilization Efficiency Of Agricultural Water Resources And The Economic Benefit Of Famers’ Irrigation In Xinjiang

The shortage of water resources has become restricting factor for the economic development of Xinjiang. In this paper, public goods theory, supply and demand theory, production theory and profit maximization theory are referenced, based on domestic and foreign research of agricultural irrigation water utilization, then Stochastic Frontier Analysis has been performed to measure the irrigation water efficiency by panel data of 14 prefectures of Xinjiang from 2004 to 2013, the model of Tobit is used to analyze influential factors affecting the irrigation water efficiency. On the bases of field survey, the paper researches the farmers` cognition of the agricultural irrigation and the influence of the different irrigation techniques on farmers’ farmland management benefits. At last, based on the research conclusion, the article put forward the policy recommendations from two aspects such as the methods to improve the irrigation water efficiency and the reform measures to promote water management system.Some conclusions are as follows: the agricultural irrigation water efficiency is much lower than the production technical efficiency in Xinjiang, the water efficiency in Xinjiang is improved and the disparity between prefectures of irrigation water efficiency is significantly reduced. Per capita water resources in Xinjiang and Surface water share of the total water supply have negative significant effects on agricultural water use efficiency, while agricultural effective irrigation area, the number of reservoirs, the per capita GDP, cotton planting area have positive significant effects. The direction that the irrigation water prices, annual precipitation, Annual sunshine duration and planting structure influence the agricultural water use efficiency is different in each region. That means, based on the actual situation, each regions should reasonably plan the irrigation water and conservancy facilities, properly formulate the water price and timely arrange crop planting structure.For cognition aspects of irrigation water, 71% of the farmers have realized the scarcity of water resource, but the farmer’s cognition about agricultural water price and water right is inadequate. 77.2% of the farmers can’t realize the low water price, about agricultural water rights trading, 57.35% of farmers are not willing to trade the water rights in the market. By comparison between farmers economic benefits, crop yield in high efficient water-saving irrigation technology is higher than common drip irrigation, also higher than that of flood irrigation. That means that the rational farmers by high efficiency water saving irrigation technique can increase the economic benefits and improve the agricultural water use efficiency. The economic benefits of economic crops are higher than the benefits of agricultural crops under the same irrigation technology, the government need optimize the planting structure to bring economic benefits for farmers but also should consider the food security.