Abstract
This paper examines the impacts of off-farm employment on irrigation water efficiency (IWE) with a set of household level data collected in Hebei Province in North China. A major finding is that households with higher shares of laborers working off-farm locally seem to achieve higher IWEs. The effect of local off-farm employment is greater among those households that have made more efforts to use furrow irrigation. We also find that households with higher shares of elderly laborers and those with larger land holding are associated with lower IWEs. Households with better soil quality and those that pump from deeper wells are associated with higher IWEs.
Highlights
Water is an essential input in grain production, but many countries and regions have witnessed increased scarcity of water resources [1]
As in other developing countries currently experiencing economic transition, migration and local off-farm employment has become a common trend in China
This study examines impacts of off-farm employment on irrigation water efficiency (IWE) with a set of household level data collected in Hebei Province in North
Summary
Water is an essential input in grain production, but many countries and regions have witnessed increased scarcity of water resources [1]. In China, water resources are not evenly distributed. North China has less than one-quarter of the country’s water endowment, even though 11.30%. In North China, more than 70% of its seasonal precipitation is concentrated between June and September. With surface water resources largely diminished, irrigation in North China relies heavily on groundwater, which has led to the rapid decline in water tables in several areas. The decrease in groundwater level is especially alarming near Beijing in Hebei Province, which covers most of the Hai River Basin, one of nine major river basins in China [3]. Increasing water scarcity is challenging to the agricultural sector
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