Education level of farmers, market-oriented reforms, and the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources in China

The utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources has an overall and long-term impact on agricultural development. However, owing to serious wastage of agricultural water resources for a long time, low utilization efficiency of such water resources has become a common problem in developing countries. Past studies have paid scant attention to the impact of soft factors, namely farmers' educational level and market-oriented reforms, especially in a quantified form, on the improvement of agricultural water utilization efficiency. This study adopted the system Generalized Method of Moments estimation method of a dynamic panel model and used provincial panel data from China for 2007-2020 period. The results show that the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources can indeed be improved by either promoting farmers' education levels or deepening market-oriented reforms. However, with the advancement of market-oriented reforms, the influence of farmers' education level on the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources gradually weakens, which is due to the agricultural to non-agricultural effect. Finally, this paper proposes policy suggestions to improve the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources from three perspectives: improving the education level of farmers, optimizing the agricultural water pricing system, and improving the agricultural water rights trading system.

Automated summary

The utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources has a significant impact on agricultural development. However, the low utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources is a common problem in developing countries due to long-term wastage. This study explores the impact of farmers' education level and market-oriented reforms on improving the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources, using panel data from China for the 2007-2020 period. The results indicate that promoting farmers' education levels and deepening market-oriented reforms can enhance the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources, but the influence of education level weakens with the advancement of market-oriented reforms.