我国灌区的建设与管理中仍然存在着“重建轻管”、“重灌轻排”的现象，这是长期投入不合理和传统的管理体制所造成的。文章指出在进行大型灌区续建配套与节水改造的过程中，应以建设节水高效灌溉农业为目标，采取国家加大投资力度并调整投资分担比例，进行管理体制的改革，推广科学灌溉并提高用水效率等有力措施，以改变“重建轻管”、“重灌轻排”的现象，使我国灌溉农业得以可持续发展。

Would the foods of China be sufficient to support the need of 1.6 billion people? The answer to this question depends on the possibility of relying on the existing 400 billion m³ of irrigation water to increase grain output from the 500 million tons to 700 million tons in the future while meeting the water demand of other crops. In order to achieve the strategic goal, water-saving and high-efficiency farming must be built without any doubt. However, for a long time, emphasis was laid on the engineering works of irrigation projects while slighting their management, on the construction of main projects while slighting the timely completion of related supplementary works, on the irrigation while slighting drainage on the farms. By analyzing the current irrigated farming, the author draws a conclusion that all these problems remained unsolved are because of shortcomings in the management system, investment mechanism and price policy, and gives some reforming suggestions in the paper. It is also analyzed that great effort should be paid on the improvement of the traditional farming to pave the way for restructuring agriculture of China.