The neglected role of the perceived interconnectedness of risks in risk management

Farmers’ risk management strategies might not (always) align with outsiders’ expectations and recommendations. Examinations of farmers’ risk perceptions can give an insight in the reason for this divergence. For one, it has to be taken into account that farmers’ risk management strategies are embedded in the farmers’ economic context, but also in historical, social, cultural, political and ecological contexts. As a consequence, also risks that are not necessarily directly related to production and the farm have an influence on farmers’ decisions. Furthermore, risks cannot be considered to be isolated but need to be analyzed in terms of their interconnections, this in contrast to how most risk management approaches consider risk.

In this paper, we address farmers’ risk perceptions in Belgium and Switzerland, two countries in which most farms are family owned and run. Our findings are based on the findings of two different projects in which semi-structured interviews have been carried out. Given the different structure of the projects we adopt a qualitative approach for the analysis of the interviews in both countries.

As a starting point we take the risk of policy and regulations that has been mentioned as a high risk in Belgium as well as in Switzerland. We analyze how this risk is perceived in relation to other social, cultural, political and ecological risks and how these interconnectedness is characterized in the different cases. Having a look at the interconnected risks we can show how such perceived interconnections can enhance or diminish risks and thus can indirectly play a crucial role for risk management strategies.