Irrigation, agricultural performance and poverty reduction in China

Abstract

The overall goal of our paper is to understand the impact that irrigation in China has had on grain production and incomes, in general, and income and poverty alleviation in poor areas, in particular. The paper seeks to meet three objectives. First, we describe the relationship among irrigation status, yields and household crop revenue. Second, we seek to understand the magnitude and nature of the effect that irrigation has on yields and crop revenue. Finally, we seek to understand the impact that irrigation has on incomes in poor areas. Our analysis shows that irrigation contributes to increases in yields for almost all crops and in income for farmers in all areas. The importance of crop income in poor areas and the strong relationship between crop revenue and irrigation provides evidence of the importance of irrigation in past and future poverty alleviation in China. We also show that in the majority of the villages that invested in new irrigation, returns are positive even after accounting for increases in capital and production costs.

Access to groundwater and agricultural production in China

“…Therefore, the goal of this paper is to measure the impacts of the changes in the ways that farmers access irrigation services on water use, yields and income. We begin by assuming that farmers who irrigate obtain higher yields and earn higher incomes, which is consistent with results in Huang et al (2006). We then ask: does it matter "how" people obtain access to groundwater?…”

Impacts of Off-Farm Employment on Irrigation Water Efficiency in North China

“…Investing in irrigation may bring high returns because irrigation improves crop yields. For example, Huang et al find that, ceteris paribus, switching from rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture increases wheat yield by about 18% [33]. Whether additional income will be used for to the purchase of other inputs and/or productive investments depends on the importance of agriculture to households.…”

Exploring ways to increase public investments in agricultural water management and irrigation for improved agricultural productivity in Southern Africa

“…Despite questions raised on the performance of investments in irrigation in the past, there is evidence that investments in irrigated areas contributed to significant agricultural production growth, food security and poverty reduction in the target areas (De Fraiture et al, 2010;Fan et al, 2000;Huang et al, 2006;Lipton et al, 2003;Turral et al, 2010). For example, Domenech and Ringler (2013) reported that the impact of irrigation on yield can be as much as a 150% increase in maize and other crops in Africa, because the base yield levels are low.…”