Risk Attitudes of Rice Farmers Participating in IFAD-VCD Programme in Niger State of Nigeria
2019
Sadiq, M S | Singh, I P | Ahmad, M M | Usman, B I | Yunusa, J B
Weather vagaries, inconsistent government policies and market imperfections make things difficult for smallholder farmers to predict the future with certainty, thus, there is a need to understand their behavior towards risk. It is in the light of this that this study was conceptualized to determine risk attitudes of rice farmers participating in IFAD-VCD programme in Niger State of Nigeria. Cross-sectional data of 2018 cropping season was collected on a fortnightly basis from 110 IFAD rice farmers through a structured questionnaire complemented with an interview schedule and the collected data were analyzed using safety-first rule approach and Tobit regression model. The empirical evidence showed that most of the farmers were risk-averse owing to lack of complete market information in spite of the technical and input-output market support offered by IFAD programme in the study area. However, the major factors identified to be affecting farmers’ preference for risk in rice production were the problem of glut which causes price dampening and high agroinput prices in the studied area. Therefore, the study recommends the need to strengthen the linkage between the farmers and off-takers, subsidizing farm inputs and also providing farmers with adequate market information in order to allay the fear of market imperfection in the studied area.
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