Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Small-Scale Farmland Water Conservation Construction in China

Small-scale farmland water conservation facilities are “the last mile” of irrigation works, and determine whether the large- and medium-scale water conservation projects financed by the government will provide the most value and maximum efficiency. Farmers play a primary role in the construction of small-scale farmland water conservation, while the government’s role is only to encourage and subsidize such projects. Farmers’ willingness to participate determines their behavior. This paper, firstly, uses a utility function for goods and water conservation facilities to solve the farmers’ optimization problem. It puts forward six theoretical propositions about farmers’ willingness to invest in small-scale farmland water conservation. Secondly, based on survey data in Hubei Province, China, the Heckman Two-step Model is used to analyze the factors affecting farmers’ willingness to participate in construction of small-scale irrigation systems and the factors affecting the amount of investment that participants are willing to undertake.