Rescaling drought mitigation in rural Sri Lanka

Smallholder farmers with limited governmental and institutional support often devise innovative strategies to mitigate the impacts of water stress on agricultural production. These drought mitigation strategies can be more culturally and ecologically suitable than top-down, “technocratic,” strategies. Top-down drought mitigation approaches, however, often link farmers with significant infrastructures, financial resources, and specialized knowledge. Successful rescaling of localized mitigation practices can integrate the benefits of localized mitigation with resources available at larger scales. This paper describes the rescaling of a Sri Lankan drought mitigation practice known as bethma. We focus on the process of rescaling, specifically what is lost and gained when this local practice is implemented at a much larger scale. We identify factors driving participation in bethma and the impacts of this participation on farmer livelihoods. Results suggest that participation in bethma during water-scarce seasons has significant positive impacts on agricultural yields, but that this participation is strongly influenced by the nature of a farmer’s land ownership. Much of the success of bethma’s implementation is due to the decentralized, flexible implementation at a regional scale. The loss of localized information, however, influences farmer participation in the practices and the distribution of the benefits associated with bethma.