Understanding pastoralist adaptations to drought via games and choice experiments: Field testing among Borana communities

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dc.creatorBell, Andrew Reid
dc.creatorRakotonarivo, O. Sarobidy
dc.creatorZhang, Wei
dc.creatorDe Petris, Caterina
dc.creatorKipchumba, Adams
dc.creatorMeinzen-Dick, Ruth S.
dc.date2025-03
dc.date2025-03-11T16:39:15Z
dc.date2025-03-11T16:39:15Z
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-27T15:35:38Z
dc.descriptionTranshumant and nomadic pastoralism in arid and semi-arid spaces from West through Central, East, and Southern Africa is regarded as critical to regional system resilience and food security. Although pastoral systems are highly adapted and adaptive to uncertainty and change, recent decades of severe climatic events and increasing resource pressure are pushing pastoral systems to adopt novel norms and practices. Importantly, forage residue conservation and private forage enclosures are becoming important practices among herders and non-herders alike. As one part of considering the relevance of these responses in shaping the future trajectory of transhumant pastoralism, we developed a multi-part intervention for measuring and observing preferences in pastoral systems, including a novel experimental game called GreenReserve, and tested it in Borana communities in northern Kenya. We found that GreenReserve captured dimensions of human-environment dilemmas faced by pastoralists, and shifted preferences around herd size, losses, and the use of time, as measured through a repeated discrete choice experiment. We found game groups with younger players and with more female players to include more exploration of pastoral adaptations such as the use of grass reserves and the harvesting of grass, as well as to have less conflict within the game. We also observed both preferences as well as game strategy to shift along the length of the study: as the region moved further into a drought and failed short rainy season, players were more conscious of large herds, bad rainfall-year losses, and made better use of reserves in game play, though it was beyond the scope of the current study to determine causality. Future research is needed to unpack the mechanisms underlying the variations and possible shift in preferences and subsequently help identify entry points for targeted interventions (including agricultural extension services) to support pastoral communities in climate change adaptation. Further, these first fieldwork findings suggest two key dimensions for expanded work beyond this study to identify whether mixed methods approaches such as this aid experiential learning in agriculture contexts.
dc.identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/173575
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/108848
dc.languageen
dc.publisherResilience Alliance, Inc.
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/114024
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2015.11.012
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.136723
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.5751/ES-13862-280130
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2023.101289
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.02.006
dc.rightsOpen Access
dc.sourceBell, Andrew Reid; Rakotonarivo, O. Sarobidy; Zhang, Wei; De Petris, Caterina; Kipchumba, Adams; and Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S. 2025. Understanding pastoralist adaptations to drought via games and choice experiments: Field testing among Borana communities. Ecology and Society 30(1): 25. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-15836-300125
dc.subjectpastoralists
dc.subjectdrought
dc.subjectfood security
dc.subjectexperiential learning
dc.subjectclimate change adaptation
dc.subjectclimate change
dc.titleUnderstanding pastoralist adaptations to drought via games and choice experiments: Field testing among Borana communities
dc.typeJournal Article

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Instituto Internacional de Investigación sobre Políticas Alimentarias (IFPRI)