ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between complex, generative conceptual cultural models and the actions and decisions farmers make in their agricultural lives. It is part of an international collaboration that focused specifically on primary food producers in different parts of the world. The chapter focuses on some of the most important cultural models for local farmers in rural Punjab and the ways in which they underpin observable behaviors and attitudes about nature in times of significant political, economic, and environmental change. Farmers describe their powerlessness in the face of the changes to rain patterns. The erratic nature of rainfall—by apparent consensus said to be worse than in the past—leaves local people vulnerable to serious economic hardship unless they have the resources to invest in costly groundwater pumping irrigation. The challenges of delivering adequate irrigation for the range of crops local farmers have invested in are considerable.
