Developing a holistic approach to the analysis of farmer decision-making: implications for adaptation policy and practice in developing countries

Smallholder farmers operate within a risky and uncertain context. In addition to climate variability and climate change, social, environmental, institutional, and market-related dynamics affect their agricultural decisions and ability to cope and adapt. In this paper, we develop and apply a set of framing questions to investigate the factors shaping farmer decision-making and how these are situated in pathways of response. Drawing on a literature review of decision-making for risk management, four questions are posed to frame enquiry: who makes livelihood decisions, why they are made, and how and when they are made. This approach conceptualises and explores household decision-making in a holistic manner, moving beyond previous studies that examine smallholder decisions through disciplinary boundaries (e.g. psychology, economics, risk management) or particular theoretical approaches (e.g. bounded rationality, theory of planned behaviour). The framing questions are used to design and interpret empirical evidence from Pratapgarh, a tribal-dominated rainfed district in southeast Rajasthan, India. The findings suggest that while resource ownership and access are the main drivers of decision-making, socio-cognitive factors such as perceived adaptive capacity and perceived efficacy to carry out adaptive actions are equally important factors mediating farmer responses. We also find that the holistic approach helps explain how personal motivations and individual perceptions of adaptive capacity interact with socioeconomic, climatic, and agro-ecological dynamics at local and regional scales to mediate risk perception and inform response behaviour. Making a case for mixed methods to investigate farmer decision-making holistically, this paper provides an approach that reflects the complex and iterative nature of real farmer decision-making and can be used by researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to better understand and describe decision making and to develop informed policies and interventions

Experimental Games for Strengthening Collective Action? Learning from Field Experiments in India

Groundwater is a common pool resource which experiences depletion in many places around the world. The increased use of irrigation and water demanding cash crops stimulate this development. This project aims to test whether experimental games can only be used to measure collective action but also to strengthen collective action for managing shared natural resources (groundwater) in Andhra Pradesh, India. Two NGOs (Foundation for Ecological Security and Jana Jagriti) ran the games in communities in which they were working to improve watershed and water management. The game looks at how people make decisions in what crops to plant. Games were played with groups of five men or five women, followed by a community debriefing. Two different payment methods (flat-fee for a community fund or individual payments) were used to test whether the payment method affects behavior and the way people play the games. Behavioral and attitudinal variables regarding water use and mechanisms for regulating and responding to changes and uncertainty in social and ecological conditions were also monitored at the household and community levels. Treatment groups were villages in which field experiments with collective action games were implemented. Control cases were comparable communities where no such experiments were conducted but the same NGOs are working to strengthen collective groundwater management. Follow up game sessions and surveys were conducted two years after the initial sessions to explore any lasting effect, if any, of such intervention. The game protocol was slightly modified in the second wave to incorporate domestic water consumption in the game scenario. Overall, this project analyses whether the experimental exercise changes participants’ mental models about the interactions between resource dynamics, group goals, and private interests.</p