On March 19, during the spring farming season, farmers in Tianyang District of Baise started using new spring farming “agricultural tools” – shared water stakes. With these “new tools”, farmers only need to scan codes on intelligent water cabinets in the fields, connect a hose and they can start irrigating this year’s seedlings. This is a snapshot of the Tianyang comprehensive water price reform pilot project.
▲Shared water stakes in the farmland
With features such as strong anti-interference communication capability, low power consumption, network formation, and smart water metering, it can be installed in all farmland, hillsides, and mountain slopes. This has broken the previous situation where farmers relied on rainfall for planting, achieving the extension of farmland where farmers cultivate, and smart water tanks can also be installed there.
In the water price comprehensive reform demonstration area of Tianyang District, Baise City, some water intake points have dried up or become seasonally water-deficient due to natural and historical reasons. Farmers have faced water shortages for many years; it only rains when the open channels can supply water for crop irrigation. In the early stages of the water price comprehensive reform, water from the Youjiang River has been pumped to the farmland, but the lack of more effective management methods has made the entire system’s operating costs enormous. Due to the scattered distribution of cultivated land and agricultural land, centralized management is difficult. There have been instances where users at the top of the pipeline network do not conserve water, leading to users at the end of the network having no water. This requires a large amount of manpower to patrol water usage and check meters for billing. Finally, the huge labor expenditure makes operations unsustainable, and the investment recovery of the entire water conservancy supporting facilities and equipment is hopeless. These are the three major problems that the pilot water price comprehensive reform in Tiangyang District aims to solve: farmers’ difficulty in accessing water, the difficulty in managing thousands of households, and the difficulty in recovering hydropower investment costs.
The “Tianyang Water Price Comprehensive Reform” conducted in cooperation with Tianyang District Water Conservancy Bureau and JJR will use new technologies such as the Internet of Things and big data to solve these three long-standing problems.
Five pilot zones, covering more than ten thousand mu of agricultural land, have installed intelligent water tanks customized by JJR for the Tianyang comprehensive water price reform, from flatlands to hillsides. All these are networked under the “Comprehensive Water Price Reform Management Platform”. Farmers only need to easily scan a code in the fields to use water, and both the collection and payment of water fees are completed via a WeChat mini program, greatly saving on manpower for management and operation. The entire process is managed with big data, changing the traditional manual water meter reading model. Farmers can use the system independently, and it automatically manages and deducts fees, ensuring normal and healthy operation of water conservancy facilities and making it easier for the government to manage and operate.
The comprehensive water price reform project in Tianyang District has also established a complete set of scientific and sustainable water rights pricing mechanisms. Based on the water requirements characteristics of crops planted by users, planting area and other information, water rights are scientifically allocated to each farmer. A scientific tiered water price is used to encourage farmers to use water scientifically and save water efficiently. Moreover, rewards are given to farmers who achieve water-saving effects each year, advocating for a long-term scientific approach to water use.
Under the guidance of policies and the facilitation provided by multiple parties in terms of “hardware and software”, the project has been running steadily. Farmers have high participation and positive feedback. Compared with the previous open channel water conveyance, more than 90% of the water can be effectively utilized, with an efficiency increase of over 50%.
Not only that, this new agricultural tool in the field can also help farmers solve planting technical problems, achieve centralized management and quality control through Internet of Things and big data technologies, thereby achieving centralized and unified sales, solving the problem of agricultural product sales, and promoting the upgrading of planting models.
The Tianyang water price comprehensive reform project is not only an implementation of the rural revitalization theme but also lays the foundation for the upgrading of Tianyang’s agricultural industry, serving as a proactive response to new rural infrastructure construction. In the eyes of the vast number of farmers in Tianyang, this water price reform has genuinely delivered convenience and benefits to the farmers, creating a positive atmosphere of widespread support, concern, and participation in the reform among the farmers. At the same time, it promotes scientific water use, facilitates the transformation and upgrading of the agricultural industry, creates better soil conditions, and becomes a new model for the construction of high-standard farmland.
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