Farmers’ risk preferences and their climate change adaptation strategies in the Yongqiao District, China – Land Use Policy

Farmers’ risk preferences and their climate change adaptation strategies in the Yongqiao District, China – Land Use Policy

Farmers’ risk preferences and their climate change adaptation strategies in the Yongqiao District, China

Jin Jianjun a, Gao Yiwei a, Wang Xiaomin a, Pham Khanh Nam b,

a: College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
b: Ho Chi Minh City, University of Economics, Viet Nam

Received 18 December 2014, Revised 2 April 2015, Accepted 29 April 2015, Available online 15 May 2015

Abstract

Farmers’ risk preferences play an important role in agricultural production decisions. This study characterizes risk preferences among farmers in Yongqiao and determines how these risk preferences are related to their choices regarding climate change adaptation strategies. We find that most farmers in the study area were aware of climate change. They were taking measures to protect their livelihoods against perceived changes to the local climate. The risk experiment result shows that the representative subject was risk averse, and women were more risk averse than men. The relationships between farmers’ risk preferences and different climate change adaptation choices were different. Farmers’ risk aversion was negatively and significantly related with adaptation strategies on planting new crop varieties and adopting new technology, but it had a significantly positive effect on purchasing weather index crop insurance. The results also indicate that the level of education, farming experience, farm size, household income and perception of climate change impacts influence farmers’ adaptation decisions.

Keywords

Risk preference; Climate change; Adaptation strategy; China

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