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MLS, MPhil and PhD thesis of IPS research staff.
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Item Shared Beliefs, Expectations and Surprises: Adaptation Decisions of Village Tank Farmers in Sri Lanka(2013-08-23) Senaratne, AthulaGlobal climate change could have far-reaching consequences for farming communities, particularly in developing countries. Rain-fed farmers, such as village tank farmers in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, are among the most vulnerable because they depend heavily on local rainfall and have limited means to adapt. While adaptation has been the key strategy to help generations of farmers overcome climate uncertainty, it essentially involves regular, risky decisions on adaptation options. Some researchers have proposed that experience gained from repeated choices help farmers make better adaptation decisions. However, recent advances in decision theory suggest that the cognitive limitations of decision-makers and the ambiguity associated with rainfall variability limit the usefulness of personal experience as a reliable guide for making adaptation decisions. Conversely, a significant body of empirical literature on climate adaptation has provided evidence to indicate that farmers’ adaptation decisions are strongly influenced by their commonly held beliefs. This study examined the adaptation choice behaviour of village tank farmers in Sri Lanka by focusing on four interrelated research questions: (a) Do farmers’ have shared beliefs that lead them to identify the general pattern of variability and long-term changes in rainfall and are these perceptions consistent with the patterns observed in local weather data? (b) If so, how do the shared beliefs guide adaptation decisions on different time horizons and joint decisions of adaptation? (c) If farmers are guided by commonly held beliefs, what factors lead to individual variations in adaptation choices ? (d) What factors govern the sensitivity to surprise rainfall events that fall outside farmers’ rainfall expectations? The study used primary data collected from a household survey of 181 farmers in nine villages in three tank cascade systems in the Anuradhapura district of Sri Lanka, focus group discussions (FGDs), expert interviews and secondary data from local weather stations. The data was used to empirically test propositions and hypotheses based on a conceptual framework that was developed from the insights of formal theories on risk behaviour, recent advances in behavioural decision theory and empirical studies on farmers’ climate adaptation behaviour. The analytical tools used included consensus analysis (CA), descriptive statistical methods and estimation of multiple regression models. The results of the study showed a sufficient level of consensus in farmers’ rainfall expectations to confirm the existence of commonly held beliefs about the pattern of variability in local rainfall. Shared beliefs were assessed to be consistent with the pattern of variability indicated by rainfall data from local weather stations. However, farmers’ responses did not show sufficient level of consensus to confirm the existence of shared perceptions about long-term changes in local rainfall. The study provides evidence to support the proposition that shared beliefs have an influence on farmers’ adaptation decisions. The beliefs appear to guide three hierarchical levels of decisions: broad prospects of adaptation, farming activities coming under broad prospects and operational arrangements of activities. As far as joint adaptation decisions of farmers were concerned, ownership arrangements of livelihood provide flexibility to adjust to conditions of temporal scarcity of water. In this setting, the shared beliefs facilitate collective decisions of farmers coordinated through local institutions. The study also found that in spite of the influence of shared beliefs, farmers make adaptation choices subject to individual levels of household adaptivity. Econometric models that were estimated to test the hypotheses suggest that household adaptivity is significantly affected by personal-, household - and community-level variables, including personal experience, age categories and the endowments, earnings and location of households. The most important variable for explaining the sensitivity to surprise rainfall events was the level of exposure to the shock and the household coping capacity to respond. The study has a number of general and area-specific policy implications. It strongly emphasises the importance of taking farmers’ beliefs into consideration in designing, producing and communicating climate information products and interventions, such as long-term climate projections, seasonal precipitation forecasts (SPFs) and shortterm weather forecasts. The concept of household adaptivity links important policy concepts such as adaptive capacity and vulnerability with the individual perceptions of risks in decision-making behaviour of adaptation. The study suggests that welfare losses caused by surprise events could be reduced by focusing on interventions that help to minimise sensitivity to the events and increasing the household capacity to respond to them .