What is the effect of agricultural water price reform?

At present, the general standard of agricultural water price is low, the real yield is low, farmers have no motivation to save water, and it is difficult to maintain the normal operation of irrigation and drainage projects. Carrying out the reform of agricultural water price does not simply raise the price, but involves the comprehensive reform of water right distribution, price formation mechanism, subsidy and incentive mechanism and so on. Although the reform of agricultural water price is difficult, it is imperative.

In the golden autumn, while taking stock of the grain harvest, you might as well take a look at the results of the pilot project of agricultural water price reform. Has the reform achieved the goal of saving water and increasing efficiency, and what are the practical problems? A reporter from the Economic Daily came to Beijing, Hebei and other places to look for answers.

The standard of agricultural water price is on the low side, and it is difficult to restrain farmers' behavior of wasting water.

In Hekou Village, Fangshan District, Beijing, the reporter ran into villager Li Fengxia. Talking to her about last year's vegetable harvest and the input costs of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, Li Fengxia blurted out, but when asked how much she paid for water, she became confused. "watering requires electricity. Before this year, the water charges for irrigating land in our village were all calculated according to electricity charges. It costs 70 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity, and my home should be about 10 yuan for one watering." Li Fengxia said, "I don't have much feeling for 10 yuan. I always charge 100 yuan into my card every time. If it's not enough, I'll recharge it again."

Li Fengxia's case is not alone. The agricultural water price in our country is determined on the basis of cost, and the water supply cost is generally composed of power fee, maintenance fee, labor fee, depreciation fee and so on, but at present, the agricultural water price in most places is lower than the cost, and in many places where groundwater is used for irrigation, the collection of water fee is mainly based on power fee. According to the calculation of he Sheng-Chung, a water manager in Hekou Village, irrigation used to cost 7.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity and only needed to pay more than 5 yuan. "five yuan is nothing. Some villagers turn on the irrigation equipment and forget to turn off the water as soon as they are busy with other things."

The current standard of agricultural water price is generally on the low side, and the water charge is "no trouble". It is very difficult for farmers to waste water, let alone arouse the enthusiasm of actively saving water.

In China, agriculture is the largest water user, agricultural water consumption accounts for more than 60% of the total water consumption, the way of agricultural water use is 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 most water-saving area and the most potential water-saving area.

To promote agricultural water saving, in addition to speeding up the construction of engineering facilities, what is most needed at present is to innovate systems and mechanisms, and the comprehensive reform of agricultural water prices is regarded as an important breakthrough. "through reform, it is necessary to make water prices better reflect market supply and demand and the degree of scarcity of resources, give full play to the leverage role of water prices in water conservation, and stimulate farmers' power to save water." Wu Wenqing, chief financial officer of the Ministry of Water Resources, said.

In fact, the way of stimulating industrial water-saving and urban water-saving through price leverage has been carried out in many places and achieved good results. But when it comes to the field of agricultural water prices, the issue becomes sensitive again. "after the implementation of the 'four subsidies' for agriculture, most of the links in agricultural production are 'given', while the water used for irrigation is charged, and there is a big contrast between 'giving' and 'collecting'." Wu Wenqing said. Some farmers are not aware of the commodity nature of water, do not treat water charges as a necessary expenditure on 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 price can be imagined. To this end, the state adopts the pilot first approach, through the pilot to sum up the reform experience. It is understood that the pilot project mainly focuses on clarifying agricultural water rights, improving the formation mechanism of agricultural water prices, and establishing accurate subsidies for agricultural water use and water-saving incentive mechanisms. At present, the pilot project of comprehensive reform of agricultural water price has been completed, which has laid the foundation for promoting the comprehensive reform of agricultural water price nationwide in the later stage.

The core of the reform is to save water, but to increase irrigation costs.

Huo Guangyu, a villager from Dongnan Village, Gaowan Town, Haixing County, Cangzhou City, Hebei Province, got a water right certificate this year. The blue book shows his family's contracted land area, the amount of water rights 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 basis for promoting water price reform. "first of all, it is necessary to confirm the right and clarify the total amount of water that agricultural water users can enjoy each year, and only after clarifying their rights can they increase the price of excess water consumption progressively and reward the saving part." Chen Mingzhong, director of the Water Resources Department of the Ministry of Water Resources, said.

Water has the characteristics of flow, and it is difficult to measure, so it is more difficult to clarify water rights than to determine land rights. Peng Junling, director of the Water Resources Department of the Hebei Provincial Water Resources Department, said that Hebei Province has comprehensively promoted the determination of water rights in key areas for the treatment of groundwater overexploitation. "first of all, it is clear that the agricultural distributable water in a certain area is the remaining water after deducting reasonable living, non-agricultural production, eco-environmental water consumption and reserved water, and calculates the average agricultural distributable water per mu, according to the contracted land area. finally confirm the right to the household."

"within the water right quota, the first-grade water charge is charged at 35 cents per cubic metre, the second-grade water charge is 64 cents per cubic meter, and the third-grade water charge is 84 cents per cubic meter." Huo Guangyu said. The reporter asked him whether the amount of water within the quota could meet the irrigation demand, and he said, "it is certainly not enough according to the original way of flood irrigation, but now it is basically no problem." It turns out that Haixing County has carried out progressive price increases for agricultural water consumption in excess of the quota on the one hand, and paid close attention to project construction on the other, dredging irrigation channels, laying low-pressure pipe networks, and changing backward irrigation methods. "now watering the land saves water, time and effort."

This year, Hekou Village, Fangshan District, Beijing, also began to implement the determination of water rights and progressive price increases beyond the quota, and changed the way of calculating water charges on the basis of electricity, calculated directly on the basis of water consumption, and adjusted the charging standards. Li Fengxia said that the amount of water in her home is 80 cubic meters, which is calculated at 56 cents per cubic meter, and the excess is calculated at 1.50 yuan per cubic meter. "if you only use water within the quota, the water bill will be twice as high as the electricity bill in the past, not to mention an increase in case the quota is exceeded." Li Fengxia said that this made her sensitive to water charges.

The core of agricultural water price reform is to save water, but it can not increase the irrigation cost of farmers too much, what to do? Yu Zhancheng, head of the farmland Water Conservancy and soil and Water Conservation Section of the Fangshan District Water Bureau in Beijing, said that it is necessary to establish an accurate subsidy for agricultural water use and a water-saving incentive mechanism. "on the one hand, we will raise the price of water and give full play to the role of price leverage. On the other hand, our financial funds will reward farmers with the amount of water saved within the quota at the end of the year according to the standard of 1 yuan per cubic meter." Similar to the pilot method in Fangshan District, Hebei and other places are also exploring mechanisms such as "one mention and one supplement". Through flexible means, although water prices are raised, the overall expenditure on water charges does not increase, water use decreases, but benefits increase, so as to mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers to participate in and support the reform.

Encourage the new agricultural management main body to become the main body of water conservancy project management and protection.

The general standard of agricultural water price is low and the real yield is low. In addition to arousing the enthusiasm of farmers to save water, there is also a direct consequence: it is difficult for water charges to maintain the normal operation of irrigation and drainage projects.

China attaches great importance to agricultural production, and a large amount of money is invested in irrigation and water conservancy construction every year, on the one hand, but on the other hand, due to the shortage of personnel and funds for maintaining field water conservancy facilities, some local field water conservancy facilities are damaged and can not be used, which affects agricultural production and reduces the efficiency of water use.

After the reform of agricultural water price, how to manage and use the water fee collected? He Shengzhong said that the flow of funds will inform the villagers that in addition to paying water fees to the water supply units, the remaining money is mainly used for the daily maintenance of field water conservancy facilities, which is carried out by water managers like him.

The Farmers' Water use Association was established in Zhanghuiting Township, Haixing County at the beginning of this year. Gao Baohe, chairman of the association, said that the association is responsible for collecting water fees for water users and is responsible for the management and maintenance of irrigation projects in the area, which is included in the water fee. "now the association unifies the organization and overall arrangement of irrigation, which has changed the mode of decentralized irrigation in the past, which not only saves water, but also has high irrigation efficiency."

To implement the funds for management and protection, encourage farmers to set up water use cooperative organizations, encourage new agricultural operators to become the main bodies of management and protection of farmland and water conservancy projects, and let the projects run for a long time, this is another important topic to be explored in the field of water conservancy reform.

Since the pilot work of comprehensive reform of agricultural water prices was carried out, various localities have accumulated a lot of useful experience, but there are still many difficulties to be faced if this work is to be carried out throughout the country. To take the most basic, some places do not even have a device for measuring water. Yu Zhancheng said that the improvement of the metering device is an important reason why Hekou Village was chosen as the pilot project of the reform. The village built a village-level management platform for agricultural water consumption measurement in 2011. He revealed that the comprehensive investment in metering and monitoring of each well is about 12000 yuan. Obviously, this is not affordable everywhere. For example, in many places in Haixing County, general tables are still installed in certain areas. And in some parts of the country, such conditions are not available.

Many farmers reflect that the annual irrigation water use will be very different with different soil types and different rainfall conditions, so the water right quota should be adjusted dynamically, but the adjustment range and adjustment cycle still need to be considered scientifically. In addition, at present, we mainly rely on financial funds to subsidize and encourage agricultural water conservation, and experts point out that the relevant departments also need to step up the study of more market-oriented means to stimulate the motivation of water conservation.