Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

22 Non-Governmental Organization (NGO): The purpose of the analysis is to identify how to enhance crop productivity so that households can produce food and revenues constantly despite the droughts. Note that in the words of the NGO delegates, crop productivity is understood as the amount of crop (not exclusively maize) produced from each Guatemalan Quetzal invested by the farmers. Academics (AC): The purpose of the analysis is to identify how to increase maize yields and reserves as a mean to prevent starvation by increasing farmers revenues and food supply to the region. Farmers (F): The purpose of the analysis is to identify how to increase food production (not limited to maize or crops in general) and maize reserves to have food year round. Table 2. Summarized answers to the semistructured interviews. 2.3.2. Causal Loop Diagrams Figure 4 presents the CLD’s prepared jointly by the author and delegates of each group. In general, diagrams are relatively simple and focused (with the exception of diagram in Figure 4c) on one or two main causal explanations of the problem to address (decrease and fluctuations of maize affordability in the region). Next, there is a brief explanation of each diagram. Central Government (CG): Farmers productivity increases the incomes and, therefore, the wealth of the farmers. Higher wealth increases farmers’ capacity to use fertilizers (fertilizers are more affordable). Usage of fertilizers is directly related to the productivity and, therefore, the more fertilizers the farmers use the more productive they become in a virtuous cycle represented by the R1 feedback loop in Figure 4a. This loop, however, is perturbed by droughts (disturbances of the system) that reduce farmers productivity, reducing their overall wealth and hence their capacity to acquire food (food affordability). Non-Governmental Organization (NGO): Farmers productivity increases the incomes and therefore the wealth of the farmers. Higher wealth increases farmers’ capacity to access better seeds and formal education. Seeds of improved varieties, the ones that require less water, are assumed to increase crop productivities, especially during drought seasons, compared to seeds coming from informal sources (on farm save seeds for example). Better seeds increase wealth in the virtuous cycle represented by R1 in Figure 4b. Access to formal education is assumed to be linked to better agriculture practices (e.g., appropriate usage of fertilizers and land planning). Better agriculture practices increase revenues and wealth in the virtuous cycle represented by R2 in Figure 4b. Academics (AC): The causal explanation represented in Figure 4c focuses on the variation of the real yield against the expected one (yield shortage in the diagram). Yield shortage results into lower productivities and opportunity costs that reduce families’ cash and their capacity to invest in fertilizers and livestock (see feedback loops R1 and R2 in Figure 4c). Higher yield shortage also translates into a reduction of the land planted each season (see R3 in Figure 4c), because farmers need to spend more time on other activities (e.g., working on coffee plantations) and less time farming. The expected yield eventually gets adjusted, decreasing the yield shortage and opportunity costs (see loops B1 and B2 in Figure 4c). The increase in droughts occurrence increases yield shortage by affecting the maize system and its real yield, reducing at the same time the land planted and the cash available for the next season’s harvest. Farmers (F): Maize production increases incomes and households’ cash, allowing farmers to acquire more resources needed in farming activities (seeds, fertilizers, etc.). This eventually increases the maize production. Higher production results in a) higher food reserves