Risk Perception and Management Strategies in Agricultural Production: A Case Of Adana Province Of Turkey

This study aims to determine and analyze farmers’ risk perceptions and risk management strategies in agricultural production. Data were obtained in 2015 production year from face-to-face interviews of 99 farmers in Yüregir and Karaisalı district of Adana province of Turkey. Factor analysis was used in data reduction to identify a small number of factors related to risk sources and risk strategies in this study. Then, multiple regression model was used to evaluate the influence of socioeconomic characteristics on the farmers’ risk perceptions and risk management strategies using factor loadings. The results of this study show that the most important risk source that the farmers' perceive is availability of many middlemens in agriculture and food market and risk management strategy that the farmers' perceive is producing at the lowest cost. The result of factor analysis showed that the risk scale consists of 5 factors explaining 60.66% of total variance. The internal consistency coefficient Cronbach Alfa of the scale is 0.918 and KMO is 0.869. The risk management scale consists of 4 factors explaining 64.23% of total variance. The internal consistency coefficient Cronbach Alfa of the scale is 0.944 and KMO is 0.910. According to the results, perceptions are farmer-specific, a number of socio-economic variables are found to be related to risk and risk management. Improving of risk management strategies is useful for farmers as well and might help them to avoid many risks and reduce losses