| Accelerating the promotion of water-saving irrigation technology is an important way for China to realize its transformation from water-dependent agriculture to water-saving agriculture.In the past 30 years,China's agriculture has developed rapidly under the impetus of institutional changes and technological advancements,but at the same time it has also begun to face resource and environmental problems that are almost at its limit.In particular,in the dryland farming areas in northwest China,water resources have become a key constraint on the sustainable development of regional agriculture.The implementation of water-saving irrigation technology and the development of water-saving agriculture have become an effective means to achieve the sustainable use of water resources.Meanwhile,they also play an irreplaceable role in improving the efficiency of water resource utilization,ensuring regional ecological security,and realizing agricultural modernization.However,in practice,the implementation costs of water-saving irrigation technology is far higher than what the farmers can afford.Therefore,some policy supports are needed,it is also the common experience of governments in developing water-saving agriculture.However,even with the Chinese government increasing the support for farmers to adopt water-saving irrigation technologies in recent years,and along with a series of encouraging policy plans and measures,the adoption rate of water-saving irrigation technologies in Chinese agriculture is still insufficient.The scientific and reasonable subsidy standards and policy implementation modes are often regarded as the core content of improving the effectiveness of subsidy policies.However,on the one hand,the current calculation of subsidy standards for water-saving irrigation technology lacks a comprehensive cost-benefits basis,especially the non-market cost-benefits data is still missing.On the other hand,the "top-down" design of implementation modes often ignores the preferences of farmers and affects the effectiveness of the implementation of the subsidy policy.Based on this,this article took drip irrigation technology in Minqin County of Gansu Province as an example,combined with 712 urban and rural residents' survey data,calculated the subsidy standard from the perspective of “full cost-benefits”,and optimized the policy implementation mode from the "household's preferences" perspective.The research logic of this paper is “Theoretical preparation and research framework construction ? Analyzing the development process and practical problems of subsidy policy ? Analyzing the incentive effect of subsidy policy on the technology adoption of farmers?Quantifying the full cost-benefits of water-saving irrigation technology adoption and revealing household's preference to policy implementation modes?Put forward optimization proposals for subsidy standards,policy implementation modes,and other related measures”,and the specific research contents and conclusions are as follows.First,by carefully sizing up the subsidy policy for water-saving irrigation technology in China over the last 20 years,and it is divided into four stages based on the implementation scope and expected goals: Exploration stage,Initiation stage,Promotion stage,and Improvement stage.On this basis,it is clear that future subsidy policies should focus on the development of directionality,accuracy,and effectiveness.Further,the analysis of the problems faced by the current subsidy policy show that the lack of a complete cost-benefits basis for subsidy standard accounting reduces the fairness and effectiveness of subsidy policy,and the neglect of household's preferences in the design process of policy implementation has affected the effectiveness of policy implementation.In addition,the lack of feasible operating standards,insufficient special fund guarantees,the absence of a cost-benefits assessment system,the non-standard payment distribution process,the imperfect water-saving trading mechanism,and the imperfect credit insurance mechanism also caused problems related to difficulties in policy landing,poor effect,and lack of long-term effectiveness.Second,the analysis results of the SEM model show that the subsidy policy has a significant positive incentive effect on the adoption of water-saving irrigation technologies by farmers,as well as increasing the intensity of incentives with the deepening of the technology adoption stage of farmers.However,further analysis shows that the increase in the incentive effect of the subsidy policy may be primarily due to the cognitive changes of the farmers themselves,and is mainly reflected in the increase in dependence of the farmers on subsidy policies.That is,prior to the adoption of technology,the degree of recognition of technical effects and subsidy policies by farmers was relatively high,and through self-practice,farmers began to question the rationality of the original subsidy standards and policy implementation modes,thus creating new demands and stronger dependence on subsidy policies.Although this portion of the study has verified the incentive effect of subsidy policy on water-saving irrigation technology adoption by farmers,it also reflects the actual demand for optimization and adjustment of existing subsidy policies.Thirdly,the full “cost-benefits” assessment results of water-saving irrigation technology adoption indicates that the market and non-market costs of drip irrigation technology for the interviewed farmers is 195.69 yuan/mu and 207.69 yuan/mu,respectively,and the annualized market and non-market benefit is 162.43 yuan/mu and 275.91 yuan/mu,respectively.Among them,the measurement of non-market costs and benefits is the focus and difficulty of the study.In terms of assessing non-market costs,this paper combines the use of “Open-ended” and “Payment Card” leading technology to design CVM questionnaires that are more suitable for the study of farmers.Then,a more reasonable assumption was made on the distribution of respondents' real WTA based on the PID model,thereby improving the accuracy of model estimation results.In terms of non-market benefits assessing,this paper constructs a non-market benefits evaluation index system based on CE,and collects the WTP of residents through CE questionnaire design and field survey,then assessing the non-market benefits of technology adoption through the RPL model estimation and compensative surplus calculating.Fourthly,the analysis of farmers' preferences for policy implementation modes shows that the interviewed farmers are more inclined to accept the drip irrigation technology subsidy policy supported by the implementation of the arable land consolidation project,but there is heterogeneity preference for the subsidy form and technical guidance of the interviewed farmer.On the revelation of farmers' policy preferences,this paper also used the CE.Based on this method,we designed a variety of alternative policy scenarios that consist of different policy attributes(representing different alternative policy implementation modes),and then collected the preference data of farmers through the policy participation simulation.The RPL model was used to estimate the utility function that can reflect the policy preferences of farmers.Finally,using the RPL model to estimate the utility function,the policy preferences of farmers can be reflected.In the above process,the visualized questionnaire design and the introduction of error control mechanisms have also made innovative attempts to increase the interest and effectiveness of CE research.In addition,this part of the study not only provides feasible ideas for revealing policy preferences at the household level,but also extends the scope of CE application.Finally,in order to improve the practical effect of the subsidy policy of water-saving irrigation technology,this paper further discusses feasible subsidy standards,policy implementation modes,and other related measures,and puts forward specific optimization suggestions on this basis.Regarding the subsidy standards,the lower and upper limits of the drip irrigation technology subsidy standards calculated based on full cost-benefits are 240.95 yuan/mu and 275.91 yuan/mu,respectively.The lower limits can ensure that the farmers will not lose their profits on account of technology adoption,and the upper limits can enable farmers to maximize the sharing of external benefits of technology adoption.Further,by comparing with the current subsidy standards,this paper proposes related suggestions for expanding the scope of subsidies and appropriately improving current standards.In the aspect of policy implementation modes,based on the policy preferences of farmers,we put forward that paying attention to the supporting implementation of the arable land consolidation project and providing appropriate equipment subsidies and targeted technical guidance services according to the needs of farmers is important,as well as suggestions for improving overall implementation effectiveness by integrating existing policy measures.In terms of other relevant measures,this paper further proposes to refine the content of the subsidy policy,set up special funds,moderately tilt backward areas,build a full cost-benefits evaluation system,coordinate communication mechanisms,standardize the subsidy distribution process,improve the water-saving trading mechanism and the credit insurance mechanism,increase publicity and technological R&D investment,and so on. |
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