Drought, water management, and agricultural livelihoods: Understanding human-ecological system management and livelihood strategies of farmer's in rural California

Mitigating impact between agricultural livelihoods and water conservation efforts in the face of significant drought requires a sophisticated understanding of policy efforts enacted to manage water supply and the logic of human livelihood decision-making. This case study extends literature on human-water decision-making in agricultural areas by using a political ecology framework to understand how and why farmers facing significant water shortages make livelihood decisions, and how such decisions are affected by broader socio-political contexts. Specifically, we focus on farmers' livelihood strategies in the Central San Joaquin Valley of California. Here, the effects of extreme and persistent drought have resulted in a resource management governance structure that forces farmer decision-making within the narrow bounds of the newly emerging California water policy. We argue that government public policy intervention has created a potential system of “big winners and big losers,” leading to three divergent strategies farmers adopt: Nimbility, Abandonment, and Policy Engagement. These findings raise questions about how policy interventions shape livelihood strategies of farmers in the Tulare Lake Basin and by extension other areas where public policy intervention is emerging to respond to decreased water supply resources.