The impact of farmers’ assessments of risk management strategies on their adoption willingness

Abstract

Farmers’ assessments of risk management strategies and how the assessments influence their willingness to adopt these strategies are poorly understood. This study conducts a structured survey of 469 farmers to investigate how farmers assess both crop insurance and crop price insurance, the impact of the assessments on their adoption willingness, and in particular, the differences in assessments and adoption willingness between crop insurance and crop price insurance. Empirical results show that farmers’ assessments on crop insurance can be significantly improved through communication and experience. The most effective way to improve farmers’ assessments on crop price insurance is providing adequate information about the insurance products. Furthermore, farmers’ adoption willingness would be enhanced by improved assessment of both crop yield and crop price insurance. This study provides the first empirical evidence that farmers have limited information to assess insurance, which significantly influences their willingness to adopt. This finding reflects that the dissemination of insurance policies, the effectiveness of insurance, and the availability of insurance services significantly enable farmers’ ability to assess risk management strategies, which potentially increases farmers’ willingness to adopt insurance.

Keywords

• assessments
• adoption willingness
• crop insurance
• crop price insurance
• protection motivation theory (PMT)