Farm Typology in the Berambadi Watershed (India): Farming Systems Are Determined by Farm Size and Access to Groundwater

Farmers’ production decisions and agricultural practices directly and indirectly influence the quantity and quality of natural resources, some being depleted common resources such as groundwater. Representing farming systems while accounting for their flexibility is needed to evaluate targeted, regional water management policies. Farmers’ decisions regarding investing in irrigation and adopting cropping systems are inherently dynamic and must adapt to changes in climate and agronomic, economic and social, and institutional, conditions. To represent this diversity, we developed a typology of Indian farmers from a survey of 684 farms in Berambadi, an agricultural watershed in southern India (state of Karnataka). The survey provided information on farm structure, the cropping system and farm practices, water management for irrigation, and economic performances of the farm. Descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis (Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering) were used to analyze relationships between observed factors and establish the farm typology. We identified three main types of farms: (1) large diversified and productivist farms; (2) small and marginal rainfed farms, and (3) small irrigated marketing farms. This typology represents the heterogeneity of farms in the Berambadi watershed.