Social organization and small watershed development

This report discusses economic and anthropological research conducted in southern India on this topic by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). In order to analyze the potential for cooperation among small groups of farmers, the authors offer a basic distinction between two types of cooperative behavior: (1) rule-based cooperation, which is predominantly long-term, passive, predictable, invariant, and possible with either large or small groups; and (2) decision-based cooperation, which is short-term, situational, and usually carried out by small groups. Using past ICRISAT research, the authors then hypothesize that farmers prefer that small-sized sources for supplementary irrigation be privately owned by individual farmers. To test this hypothesis, data were collected from three villages where ICRISAT Village Level Studies (VLS) were being conducted - Aurepalle, Shirapur, and Kanzara. The behavior of the farmers sharing rights to wells in the VLS sample contradicted the above hypothesis. The system of cooperation followed by farmers sharing rights to wells is clearly rule-based, the village being the organizational and management unit. On the basis of these data, the authors revise their hypothesis to state that farmers prefer small sources of irrigation water to be individually owned unless there is an established system for rule-based decision-making (as was seen in the VLS sample). This implies that the development of small ponds to collect runoff for irrigation could be part of an overall village water resource development project. However, critical questions still remain unanswered regarding population stabilization, the need for intensive agriculture, resource availability, and of utmost importance, the social organization of the target community as regards the possiblity of cooperative action.