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

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 (۲۰۱۰–۲۰۱۴) 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.

Keywords:

Adoption decision , Conversation tillage , Risk efficiency , Certainty Equivalent , Soil tillage