4.2. Farmers' attitude toward IWRM
Sixteen statements in the survey quantified the farmers' attitudes
toward IWRM (Table 3). The results of the frequency analysis
show that over 70% of the respondents held a negative attitude
toward water price reforms such as increased surface water prices
(79.6% against), upward adjustments in the groundwater resources
levy (86% against), and scalar pricing mechanisms (73.2% against).
However, most respondents (60%) favored allocating water resources
on the basis of the household population. Small-scale
farmers also responded positively to the introduction of watersaving
agricultural technologies as additive measures. The data
show that 95.6% of the respondents favored irrigation ditch antiseepage
measures (including pipeline irrigation technologies) and
59.7% favored drip irrigation.
In addition, an increase in the percentage of water-saving cash
crops was widely approved (82.6%). However, only 10.7% of the
respondents favored the construction of greenhouses for commercial
vegetable and fruit production. Although the trading of
irrigation water rights has been viewed as an innovative solution to
water issues, only 3.6% of the households traded their irrigation
water rights within their communities. As irrigation water quotas
continued to shrink, farmers who use groundwater for irrigation
had no surplus water to trade, and the trading events were the
result of social, not economic, considerations.
From 2006 to 2009, 2295 pumping wells in Minqin oasis were
shut down to control the unrestrained exploitation of groundwater
resources for irrigation. Farmers have undertaken several measures
to cope with the resultant water scarcity (Table 4). The results of the
survey show that developing water-saving cash crops was ranked
as the most important priority by 35.4% of the respondents,