Impacts of risk aversion on whole-farm management in Syria

This article reports on a study of the impact of risk on farm management practices in northern Syria, focusing particularly on how these are affected by risk aversion and farm size. The study is based on production data from an eight-year field trial and on prices from market surveys. A large linear programming model is built, representing the eight years as observations from a discrete probability distribution. Risk aversion is modelled by inclusion of a utility function with constant relative risk aversion, represented using the DEMP/UEP approach.

[1]  J. Antle.  Econometric Estimation of Producers' Risk Attitudes , 1987 .

[2]  J. Dillon,et al.  Agricultural Decision Analysis , 1977 .

[3]  Haim Levy,et al.  Relative Effectiveness of Efficiency Criteria for Portfolio Selection , 1970, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

[4]  Sushil Pandey,et al.  Farm Planning under Uncertainty: A Review of Alternative Programming Models , 1991 .

[5]  G. E. Bond,et al.  RISK ATTITUDES AMONGST AUSTRALIAN FARMERS , 1980 .

[6]  P. Bardsley,et al.  An Approach To The Econometric Estimation Of Attitudes To Risk In Agriculture , 1987 .

[7]  Jack A. Meyer,et al.  Second Degree Stochastic Dominance with Respect to a Function , 1977 .

[8]  David J. Pannell,et al.  MIDAS, a bioeconomic model of a dryland farm system. , 1987 .

[9]  R. Just,et al.  On Testing the Structure of Risk Preferences in Agricultural Supply Analysis , 1991 .

[10]  David J. Pannell,et al.  UTILITY‐EFFICIENT PROGRAMMING FOR WHOLE‐FARM PLANNING , 1988 .

[11]  K. Cocks.  Discrete Stochastic Programming , 1968 .

[12]  John D. Hey,et al.  Uncertainty in Microeconomics , 1968 .

[13]  James Kliebenstein,et al.  Describing and Identifying the Complete Set of Target MOTAD Solutions , 1987 .

[14]  D. Newbery,et al.  The theory of commodity price stabilization , 1981 .

[15]  R. Myers.  Econometric testing for risk averse behaviour in agriculture , 1989 .

[16]  Jock R. Anderson,et al.  A NOTE ON DECREASING ABSOLUTE RISK AVERSION AMONG FARMERS IN NEPAL , 1982 .

[17]  A. Mazid,et al.  Incorporating risk in the economic analysis of agronomic trials: fertilizer use on barley in Syria , 1992 .

[18]  Ross Kingwell,et al.  Risk attitude and dryland farm management , 1994 .

[19]  John Okunev,et al.  A Linear Programming Algorithm for Determining Mean-Gini Efficient Farm Plans , 1988 .

[20]  D. Pannell,et al.  From Weed to Wealth? Prospects for Medic Pastures in the Mediterranean Farming System of North-West Syria , 1994 .

[21]  David J. Pannell,et al.  A mathematical programming model of a crop-livestock farm system , 1986 .

[22]  K. Arrow.  Essays in the theory of risk-bearing , 1958 .

[23]  Bruce A. McCarl,et al.  Risk Modeling Using Direct Solution of Nonlinear Approximations of the Utility Function , 1985 .

[24]  M. Bhende,et al.  Impact of diversification on household income and risk: A whole-farm modelling approach , 1994 .

[25]  Peter B. R. Hazell,et al.  A Linear Alternative to Quadratic and Semivariance Programming for Farm Planning under Uncertainty , 1971 .

[26]  H. P. Binswanger.  Attitudes toward risk: Experimental measurement in rural india , 1980 .