Pro-Commons Intent in Water Conservation Methods by Farmers: Some Evidence from Dryland Central India

Recognizing groundwater as a common-pool resource, this study explores the role of farmers’ communitarian tendencies in managing water use. Choice experiments were conducted with 310 intensive wheat farmers from Indore district in central India to investigate their priorities when opting for water conservation methods. We found that while farmers were sensitive to cost and visibility, they exhibited a pro-commons intent—that is, a strong preference for features that promoted communitarian groundwater recharge. Larger farmers with higher non-farm incomes displayed a higher pro-commons intent as compared to others. However, the pro-commons intent diminished with higher education levels, older age, and larger family sizes. We conclude that cultivating the latent predisposition for conserving water commons, while identifying the factors that limit them, may offer a viable and a relatively cost-effective alternative to groundwater conservation than external interventions like taxation or volume rationing.