Rural livelihoods displacement and mal-adaptation due to large-scale modern irrigation in Navarre, Spain

The introduction and expansion of large-scale modern irrigation technology is often justified on the grounds of agricultural productivity and, more recently, climate change adaptation. However, the impacts of its accompanying process of agricultural intensification are seldom analysed from a social-ecological lens. Here we explore the effects of a large-scale modern irrigation (LSMI) project on farming livelihoods in Navarre, Spain. We identify farmers’ main livelihood and land management strategies to show how they are affected by the adoption of LSMI technology. We show that the development of the LSMI project contributes to change farm management practices in ways that simplify cropping patterns while displacing some farmers towards drylands and forcing others to sell their arable lands. Furthermore, we suggest that the LSMI project adopters may become more sensitive to climate change in the long term. In light of these findings, we argue that LSMI projects, and irrigation policy more broadly, may be inadvertently eroding traditional and less intensive small-scale farming while contributing to land accumulation by large-scale and pro-intensification farmers. These processes may be sowing the seeds of future rural vulnerabilities under accelerating climate change. © 2024 The Author(s)