How effective is the agricultural water price reform? An in-depth interpretation of its implementation results
The current agricultural water price is generally set at a low standard with a low collection rate; farmers have no incentive to save water, and the water fees can hardly sustain the normal operation of irrigation and drainage projects. Carrying out agricultural water price reform is not simply about raising prices, but involves comprehensive reform in many aspects such as water rights allocation, price formation mechanisms, subsidies and incentive mechanisms. Although the agricultural water price reform is difficult, it is imperative.
In the golden autumn season, while taking stock of the grain harvest, it is worth looking at the results of the pilot agricultural water price reform. Has the reform achieved the goals of saving water and increasing efficiency, and what practical difficulties does it face? A reporter from Economic Daily went to Beijing, Hebei and other places to find answers.
⟦NL> The agricultural water price standard is too low, making it hard to restrain farmers' water-wasting behavior
In Hekou Village, Fangshan District, Beijing, the reporter happened to meet villager Li Fengxia. When chatting about last year's vegetable harvest and the input costs of pesticides and fertilizers, Li Fengxia answered without hesitation, but when asked how much she had paid in water fees, she became confused. “Watering requires electricity. Before this year, our village calculated the water fee for irrigating fields based on the electricity fee. One kilowatt-hour cost 7 mao, so my family probably paid about 10 yuan each time we irrigated.” Li Fengxia said, “I don't have much feeling about 10 yuan. Each time I just top up 100 yuan on the electricity card, and when it runs out I top it up again.”
Li Fengxia's situation is not an isolated case. China's agricultural water price is determined on the basis of cost. The cost of water supply generally consists of power costs, maintenance costs, labor costs, depreciation costs and so on, but at present in the vast majority of places the agricultural water price is lower than the cost. In many places that use groundwater for irrigation, water fee collection is mainly based on power costs. According to the calculation of He Shengzhong, the water manager of Hekou Village, in the past one hour of irrigation generally consumed 7.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity and required paying only a little more than 5 yuan. “5 yuan is nothing. Some villagers turn on the irrigation equipment, get busy with something else, and forget to turn off the water.”
The current agricultural water price standard is generally low, the water fee is “no big deal,” and it is very hard to restrain farmers' water-wasting behavior, let alone mobilize their initiative to save water.
In China, agriculture is the largest water user, with agricultural water use accounting for more than 60% of total water use. Agricultural water use methods are relatively extensive, and the effective utilization coefficient of farmland irrigation water is lower than the world advanced level of 0.7 to 0.8. Agriculture is regarded as the field that most needs water saving and also has the greatest potential for it.
To promote agricultural water saving, in addition to accelerating the construction of engineering facilities, what is most needed at present is innovation in systems and mechanisms, and the comprehensive reform of agricultural water prices is regarded as an important breakthrough. “Through reform, the water price should better reflect market supply and demand and the degree of resource scarcity, give play to the leverage of water prices in water saving, and stimulate farmers' motivation to save water.” said Wu Wenqing, director of the Department of Finance of the Ministry of Water Resources.
In fact, the method of stimulating industrial water saving and urban domestic water saving through the price lever has already been carried out in many places and has achieved good results. But once it involves the field of agricultural water prices, the issue becomes sensitive again. “After the implementation of the agricultural ‘four subsidies,’ most aspects of agricultural production are about ‘giving,’ while irrigation water is charged. The contrast between giving and charging is relatively large.” Wu Wenqing said. Some farmers do not realize the commodity attribute of water, do not treat water fees as a necessary expenditure in agricultural production, and even think that irrigation water should not be charged.
Under such circumstances, the difficulty of carrying out the comprehensive reform of agricultural water prices can be imagined. For this reason, the state adopted the method of piloting first, summarizing reform experience through pilot projects. It is understood that the pilots mainly focused on clarifying agricultural water rights, improving the agricultural water price formation mechanism, and establishing precise subsidies for agricultural water use and water-saving reward mechanisms. At present, the pilot work of the comprehensive reform of agricultural water prices has been completed, laying the foundation for later promoting the comprehensive reform of agricultural water prices nationwide.
The core of the reform is to save water without increasing irrigation costs too much
Huo Guangyu, a villager of Dongnan Village, Gaowan Town, Haixing County, Cangzhou City, Hebei Province, received a water rights certificate this year. On this small blue booklet are printed the area of his contracted land, the water rights quota per mu, and the annual water rights quota obtained by multiplying the two.
Clarifying agricultural water rights and strictly managing the total amount and quota of agricultural water use are the foundation for advancing water price reform. “First, rights must be confirmed, clarifying how much total water use agricultural water users can enjoy each year. Only after rights are clarified can progressive price increases be applied to water use above the quota and rewards be given for the saved portion.” said Chen Mingzhong, director of the Department of Water Resources of the Ministry of Water Resources.
Water has the characteristic of flowing and is difficult to measure, so clarifying water rights is even more difficult than confirming land rights. Peng Junling, director of the Water Resources Division of the Hebei Provincial Department of Water Resources, introduced that Hebei Province is comprehensively advancing water rights confirmation work in key areas for treating groundwater overexploitation. “First, the distributable agricultural water volume within a certain region is defined as the remaining water volume after deducting reasonable domestic, non-agricultural production, and ecological environment water use and reserved water volume. Then the distributable agricultural water volume per mu is calculated, and each household is finally confirmed rights to the household according to the area of contracted land.”
“Within the water rights quota is the first tier of water fee, charged at 3 mao 5 fen per cubic meter. The second tier for the excess portion is 6 mao 4 per cubic meter, and the third tier is 8 mao 4 per cubic meter.” Huo Guangyu said. When the reporter asked him whether the water volume within the quota could meet irrigation needs, he said, “If it were still the old flood irrigation method, it definitely would not be enough, but now there is basically no problem.” It turned out that Haixing County, on the one hand, carried out progressive price increases for agricultural water use above the quota, and on the other hand, firmly grasped engineering construction, dredged irrigation channels, laid low-pressure pipe networks, and changed backward irrigation methods. “Now irrigating the fields saves water, time and effort.”
Hekou Village, Fangshan District, Beijing, also began this year to carry out water rights confirmation and progressive price increases for water use above the quota, and changed the method of calculating water fees based on electricity, directly calculating by water use volume, and also adjusted the charging standard. Li Fengxia said that her household's water volume within the quota is 80 cubic meters, calculated at 5 mao 6 fen per cubic meter, and the excess portion at 1 yuan 5 mao per cubic meter. “If only the water within the quota is used, the water fee is still double the previous electricity fee, let alone the price increase if the quota is exceeded.” Li Fengxia said that this suddenly made her sensitive to water fees.
The core of the agricultural water price reform is to save water, but it must not increase farmers' irrigation costs too much. What should be done? Yu Zhancheng, chief of the Farmland Water Conservancy and Soil and Water Conservation Section of the Fangshan District Water Affairs Bureau in Beijing, said that this requires establishing precise subsidies for agricultural water use and water-saving reward mechanisms. “On the one hand, the water price is raised to give full play to the regulating role of the price lever. On the other hand, at the end of the year our fiscal funds will reward farmers at the standard of 1 yuan per cubic meter for the water volume saved within the quota.” Similar to the pilot method in Fangshan District, Hebei and other places are also exploring mechanisms such as “raise and subsidize.” Through flexible methods, water prices can be raised while total water fee expenditure does not increase, and water use can be reduced while benefits increase, mobilizing farmers' enthusiasm to participate in and support the reform.
Encourage new agricultural business entities to become the main bodies for managing and protecting water conservancy projects
The generally low standard and low collection rate of agricultural water prices, apart from making it difficult to mobilize farmers' enthusiasm for saving water, has another direct consequence: water fees can hardly sustain the normal operation of irrigation and drainage projects.
China attaches great importance to agricultural production and invests large amounts of funds every year in farmland water conservancy construction. While construction is ongoing, on the other hand, because both personnel and funds for maintaining field water conservancy facilities are insufficient, field water conservancy facilities in some places have become damaged and unusable, affecting agricultural production and reducing water use efficiency.
After the agricultural water price reform, how are the collected water fees managed and used? He Shengzhong said that villagers are informed of the flow of funds. In addition to paying water fees to the water supply unit, the remaining money is mainly used for the daily maintenance of field water conservancy facilities, and the specific maintenance work is the responsibility of water managers like him.
Zhang Huiting Township in Haixing County established a farmers' water use association early this year. Gao Baohe, chairman of the association, said that the association is responsible for collecting water fees from water users and for the management and maintenance of irrigation projects within its jurisdiction, with management and protection costs included in the water fees. “Now the association organizes and coordinates irrigation in a unified way, changing the past model of scattered irrigation by individual households. It not only saves water, but also makes irrigation more efficient.”
Implementing management and protection funds, encouraging farmers to establish water use cooperative organizations, and encouraging new agricultural business entities to become the main bodies for managing and protecting farmland water conservancy projects so that projects can operate for a long time is another important topic explored in the field of water conservancy reform.
Since the pilot work of the comprehensive reform of agricultural water prices began, various places have accumulated a lot of useful experience, but this work still faces no small difficulties if it is to be rolled out nationwide. At the most basic level, some places do not even have water metering devices. Yu Zhancheng said that one important reason Hekou Village was chosen as a reform pilot is that its metering devices are complete; in 2011 the village built a village-level management platform for agricultural water use metering. He disclosed that the comprehensive investment in metering and monitoring for each well is about 12,000 yuan. Obviously, not all places can afford this. In many places in Haixing County, for example, at present only a master meter is installed within a certain area. And in some places nationwide, even such conditions are not available.
Many farmers report that different soil types and different rainfall conditions lead to great differences in annual irrigation water use, so water rights quotas should be adjusted dynamically, but issues such as the scope and cycle of adjustment still need to be considered scientifically. In addition, at present the subsidies and incentives for agricultural water saving mainly rely on fiscal funds. Experts point out that relevant departments still need to promptly study more market-based means to stimulate the motivation for water saving.