Farmers’ perceptions, adoption and impacts of integrated water management technology under changing climate

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the correlations between Chinese banana farmers’ perceptions of integrated water management technology (IWMT) and their adoption behaviours and examines the impact of IWMT adoption on farm performance. The results revealed that farmers’ IWMT adoption correlates significantly with their perceptions of whether IWMT adoption can help reduce farm workload, fertilizer and water, the extent to which the technology is easier to operate, and the extent to which the technology can generate higher economic benefits than furrow irrigation technology. IWMT adoption significantly increases banana yields, gross revenue, net returns and irrigation frequency, but does not significantly affect irrigation expenditure.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• food security
• integrated water management technology
• banana farmers
• China

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) Virtual Conference on “Water Resource Management for Achieving Food Security in Asia Under Climate Change” held on 26–27 October 2022.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Hongyun Zheng upon request.

Additional information

Funding

Hongyun Zheng acknowledges the financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number 2662022JGQD006] and National Social Sciences Foundation of China [grant number 18ZDA072].