A typology of farmer’s risk perceptions and coping strategies

Farming is a risky business. The ways in which farmers perceive risks, inherit to agricultural production, and chose to manage these risks is object of this study. We aim to elucidate different risk perceptions, attitudes, coping strategies and general attitudes towards farming and their interactions. More specifically the objectives of this study are; (i) to learn about the relationships between farmers’ worldviews, attitudes towards farming, risk perceptions, risk attitudes, stated risk behaviours and revealed risk behaviours, and (ii) to distinguish between farmers’ risk coping strategies.

We will take a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. First we will explore farmers’ risk coping strategies in extensive open interviews. Next we will test the findings in a survey on a sample of approximately 750 farmers, representative for the Flanders region in Belgium. This survey will test; farmers’ worldviews, personalities, attitudes towards
farming, risk attitudes, risk perceptions and risk behaviours. Items will be tested on a 5 point Likert scale. In order to compare stated to revealed risk behaviour, the results will be complemented with the individual business results from the regional bookkeeping data network.

Confirmatory factor analyses will be used to group items in factors representing farmers’ attitude, perception, perceived behaviour, and personality traits. Pearson’s correlation will be used to test the relationship between these different factors. Finally pathway analysis will be used to test the presumed causal relationships between the factors, assumed in the conceptual framework of transactional modelling (Willock et al., 1999). Furthermore, using nonhierarchical clustering method a typology for distinct clusters of the different factors over the farmers will be established (Thomson, 2001 in McCarthy & ThoWith this research we will be able to draw conclusions about risk coping strategies of Flemish farmers and to distinguish between different types of strategies.mpson, 2007).