The efficient and sustainable use of water is becoming standard practice in water scarce regions and pro-active policy initiatives are taken to increase supply reliability considering the local context. The aim of this paper is to evaluate farmers’ acceptance of policy strategies to increase water supply reliability in a water scarce river basin in the south east of Spain. Results from a choice experiment study suggest that farmers are willing to pay double water prices to ensure water supply reliability, through government supply guaranteed programs. However, they are averse to any other institutional changes that could assist the government to achieve increased water supply.