IRRIGATION, AGRICULTURAL PERFORMANCE AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN CHINA

The overall goal of our paper is to understand the impact that irrigation investments in China have had on incomes, in general, and income and poverty alleviation in poor areas, in particular. The paper seeks to meet three objectives. First, we describe the relationship among irrigation status, crop choice, yields and household crop revenue. Second, we seek to understand the magnitude and nature of the effect that irrigation has on yields and crop revenue. Finally, we seek to understand the impact that irrigation has on incomes in poor areas. Our analysis shows that irrigation contributes to increases in yields for almost all crops and in income for farmers in all areas. The importance of cropping income in poor areas and the strong relationship between cropping revenue and irrigation provides evidence of the importance of irrigation in past and future poverty alleviation in China.