KUNMING, April 5 (Xinhua) -- A campaign to improve irrigation and help farmers in southwest China's Yunnan Province is running smoothly after some teething troubles.

Eight years ago, farmer Yang Haiqing was using old-fashioned "flood irrigation" to water his vegetables and fruit.

"I had to dig through in the ridges around the fields to allow water to flood them. Sometimes there was too much water," said Yang, 40, from Yuanmou County.

Yuanmou is a major vegetable growing area, providing produce for metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu.

"The water makes the crops more susceptible to disease and I had to use more pesticides, raising my costs."

Flood irrigation wastes a lot of water, is time-consuming and costs too much money on pesticide, Yang said.

So in 2010 when the local government announced that they would build a new irrigation system, Yang got very excited. But the campaign turned out to be a complete failure.

"They dug six reservoirs, each 400 cubic meters in volume, and built pipelines connecting the reservoirs to the fields," Yang said. "They planned to use rainwater to irrigate the crops, but the following three years happened to be dry."

Realizing their mistake, the local government spent more money on perforated pipes for drip irrigation. Instead of relying on rainwater, they connected their small reservoirs to a big reservoir nearby.

"With the new system, I only have to insert a prepaid card into a meter, and water mixed with fertilizer flows into the soil," Yang said. "I no longer have to stay in the field to prevent flooding. Everything is done automatically."

"I usually come in the morning, insert the card, mix the water and fertilizer, and just go back home," Yang said. "The holes in the pipes are small so there is no concern about too much water."

The pipes are buried in the field, so the water goes directly to the plants' roots and evaporation is limited.

Yang grows tomatoes and grapes. Other farmers in the county grow cucumbers, onions, chili, corn, cherry tomatoes, and all kinds of flowers.

"Take tomatoes for example," Yang said. "I used to get 90 tonnes of tomatoes per ha with flood irrigation, but now I can harvest 150 tonnes." Currently, each ha can generates more than 750,000 yuan (120,000 U.S. dollars) each year, 300,000 yuan more than before.

According to Qian Yonglin, the Party secretary of Qinghe Village in Yuanmou, for each ha of land, the new irrigation system uses 30 percent less fertilizer and pesticides, saves about 25 percent in labor costs, and uses about 7,500 cubic meters of water less per ha.

Currently, more than 7,300 ha of crops in Yuanmou are covered by the drip irrigation system, with plans for 6,000 ha more by the end of this year.