| Risks from agricultural farming increase at a cautious rate due to climate change,biological factors,fluctuation of input-output market prices,climatic hazards,defective markets,absence of financial services,and scarce design of risk management strategies such as small loan and insurance.Farming is a crucial source of revenue Bangladesh,so,it is important that agricultural producers should recognize and manage the related risks.Agricultural risk should not be a problem that only farm households are forced to contend with;society as a whole must play a role because losses occurred from agricultural risks and uncertainties may affect the other sectors of the economy.Farmers in recent years practicing adopted a number of risk management strategies like agricultural credit,on-off farm income,forward-backward contract,precautionary savings,sowing time differences,etc.Farmers are adopted these strategies both simultaneously and single.Many factors influence their adoption choices and practices.Unfortunately,the previous studies avoid this issue and there found an enormous literature gap.One of the key purposes of this study is to determine the factors that influences the rice producer farmer risk perceptions and risk attitude which are linked with ecological and climatic issues.Our research measures the risk perceptions of crop producer farmer,their behavior towards risky situation,and several accompanying causal factors using a crosssectional dataset on 600 rice farmers from three major rice-growing districts in Bangladesh.In this study equally likely certainty method was used to rank the farmers' perceptions of three major risk sources: risk of market price fluctuation,risk from various natural hazards,and risk of pest and disease.A risk matrix was drawn on the basis of farmers' responses for severity of major risk sources and their frequency of occurrences(on a Likert scale).Probit regression is also used to discern the underlying factors affecting risk attitudes and perceptions.The results show that farmers' age,total family income,distance from the farm gate to major market,savings,agricultural credit,off-farm income,access to information,and frequent contact with extension officers are significant determinants affecting farmers' risk attitudes and perceptions.This study provides valued insights for farmers,extension service providers,and agricultural planners on the real situation of farmers in developing countries,particularly those where crop insurance is still uncommon.In this study,we also observe the determinants for the simultaneous adoption of offfarm income diversification and agricultural credit.The findings revealed that 45 percent of the total farmers adopted off-farm income whereas only 6 percent of them adoptedagricultural credit.32 percent of total(600)farmers adopted both strategies simultaneously.This means a large number of farmers were willing to adopt only off-farm income as a risk management tool.However,in this study,the fact of farmers' simultaneous adoption behavior was not proved further rather we found mixed behavior in choosing risk management strategies.The underlying significant factors affecting the adoption of off-farm diversification and agricultural credit as tool are age,education,family size,distance,savings,risk attitude,total family income,income from crop,access of information,access of extension agent,price fluctuation risk,risk of natural hazards,risk of pest and disease.Farmers risk perception of all four categories found very strong positive correlation of adoption decision of both of the risk management tools.The bivariate Probit method permits us to analyze the conditional marginal effects and it seems that the variables which have significant value in bivariate model also have significant marginal effect that ensures the strength of the model.In Bangladesh,non-structural measures such as crop insurance have been recommended as risk management tools for farmers but have not been implemented because of a lack of supporting policies,expertise,and lack of information about farmers' willingness to adopt such strategies.This study aims to fill that research gap by exploring the factors influencing agricultural producers to purchase crop insurance.Primary data from 200 farmers were collected from three districts(Mymensingh,Barisal,and Comilla)that are prone to flooding.A multinomial logit model was adopted to investigate the relationships among dependent and explanatory variables.The results indicate that age,loan size,distance from the major river,farming experience,farming type,and risk attitude affect farmers' willingness to pay for crop insurance.Government subsidies and increased awareness of the benefits of crop insurance could improve the outlook for the agricultural sector and help medium and subsistence farmers maintain their livelihoods.The results also provide valuable guidance for local,national,and international stakeholders.This research has recognized the risk management tools associated to rice farmers' efficacy as well.Among all the inputs used by rice farmers,risk management tools found playing vital role to minimize farmers' production inefficiency.Also,labor cost was found to be highly contributing to influence efficiency.The sample farm has total of 85 percent technical efficiency,which is followed by the 64 percent of allocative and 61 percent of economic efficiency.The study result revealed that Bangladeshi rice farmers can increase output level by 15 percent with the identical level of inputs by improving technical efficiency.Beside this,attaining same level of output might be possible by lessen the cost ofproduction by 39 percent by improving the efficiency.Furthermore,we have adopted Tobit regression to assess the value for all three kinds of inefficiencies affect the model.Farmers socio economic characteristics like age,experience,farm size,distance from the main market,off farm income and the credit access were has greater influence over the efficiency level.The results of this research are based on rice growers in selected areas in Bangladesh and have broader inferences for agriculture based developing economies.The evidence provided in this research will assist governments in understanding the real situation concerning risk sources for agriculture and farmers' attitudes toward managing risk.This should lead to better policies and implementation to improve the sector's performance.Future research on the different risk sources for other crops or services in agriculture,agribusiness sector,and other broader areas could be encouraged.The findings of this research might help frame a sustainable policy to manage agricultural risk and assure the security of farmers and the sector at both macro and regional levels,especially in the flood affected areas in Bangladesh as well as the other parts of the world having similar local conditions and facing similar issues.The information of factors affecting farmers' decision to purchase crop insurance policy may assist as a basis for government line agencies to draft inclusive guidelines for farm risk management.The gathered knowledge from this study on farmers' influential factors for WTP of crop insurance may help the government extension workers to enlarge their consciousness program in more susceptible areas and in a more organized manner. |
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