Farmers' Preferences in Adopting Conservation Tillage Systems Considering Risk Attitudes in Bakhtegan Basin

نویسندگان

1 Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Islamic Republic of Iran.

2 Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Islamic Republic of Iran.

doi
10.22034/jast.25.6.1309
چکیده

Conservation tillage systems have been promoted by governments in many regions of the world as an effective strategy to reduce soil and water losses caused by conventional ‎farming practices. Considering adoption of the conservation tillage system, in addition to the uncertainty in economic ‎aspects, the attitude of farmers is also important. To assess the risk efficiency of ‎‎five tillage ‎‎‎alternatives (Low-tillage, No-tillage, Conventional tillage, and two Rotational-tillage systems), we used Stochastic Efficiency with Respect to ‎a Function approach for the ‎typical ‎wheat-‎corn ‎‎production system in Marvdasht, Bakhtegan Basin, Iran, using ‎‎‎four-year (2010–2014) field data set. Risk-neutral farmers’ ‎preferred the conventional ‎tillage method over ‎conservation tillage methods, relying on the higher net return ‎‎of the wheat-corn rotation. However, at the higher risk-aversion degrees, the ranking of ‎conventional tillage tended ‎to decline rapidly and ‎the two rotational tillage systems were preferred over other alternatives. The ‎comparison of certainty equivalents of ‎conservation tillage ‎treatments indicated the ‎‎superiority ‎of low-‎tillage over no-tillage at ‎all levels of risk aversion. The results of ‎risk premium ‎estimation ‎in ‎this study revealed that ‎providing subsidy resources is not enough to promote the adoption of conservation tillage practices, and it is ‎necessary to support risk-averse farmers by enhancing their knowledge about the risk-efficient options.