Rethinking farmers' intended risk behaviour : the role of risk perception, risk attitude and decision context

Farming is inherently risky and farmers cope with uncertainty in prices, production policy and the financial situation on the farm. Risk management becomes more pertinent because of ongoing evolutions such as climate change, liberalization and globalization of markets and a changing European agricultural policy. The doctoral dissertation starts from an identified gap between the way risk in agriculture is studied in the scientific literature and the manner in which farmers actually cope with risk. Traditional models assume that general innate risk attitude has a central role in the explanation of risk behaviour. Risk attitude is then to be understood as the individual perspective on the acceptability of risk. However, risk attitude is not stable over a variety of situations, but differs with the type of risk and the risk context. The research described in this doctoral dissertation seeks alternative methods to study actual farmers’ risk coping. Central to the doctoral research is the role of the perception of risk and how it interacts with risk attitude and the decision context to affect the intention to take or avoid risk. Risk does not exist independently of our beliefs and judgement. Therefore, the individual experience of risk, or risk perception, must be considered, rather than objective risk in explaining risk behaviour. Risk perception can focus on the source of risk or the impact of risk. The perception of the impact of risk determines the risk behaviour. Moreover, the intention to take or avoid risk strongly depends on the context in which the risk is embedded, even when the risk itself does not change. This doctoral dissertation proposes methods that can elucidate and present the true risk perception of farmers and that can clarify the role of the decision context in the choice to take or avoid risk

Saint Vincent and Foreign Missions

Vincent de Paul did not originally favor foreign missions, but later saw them as a call from God. He believed that the pope, with his authority over all priests, should send the Congregation’s members wherever they were needed. Vincent also believed that if immorality and heresy destroyed the Church in France, God may have chosen to save it by establishing it elsewhere. Of the several missions proposed during Vincent’s time, only those to Tunis, Algiers Salé (Morocco), and Madagascar were undertaken. The characteristics he desired in his missionaries and the methods they were to use are described in this article

Farm household risk balancing : implications for policy from an EU perspective

Purpose - Building on the risk balancing theory and on recent discussions the appropriateness of using farm income maximization as behavioural assumption, this paper extends the risk balancing framework by accounting for business-household interactions. The purpose of this paper is to theoretically introduce the concept of farm household risk balancing, a theoretical framework in which the farm household sets a constraint on the total household-level risk and balances farm-level and off-farm-level risk. Design/methodology/approach - The paper argues that the risk behaviour of farmers is better understood by considering risk at the household level. Using an analytical framework, equations are derived linking the farm activities, off-farm activities, consumption and business and private liquidity. Findings - The framework shows that a farm household that wants to minimize the risk that total household cash flow falls below consumption needs, may exhibit a wide variety of behavioural responses to changes in the policy and economic environment. Social implications - The framework suggests multiple ways for policy makers and individual farmers to support risk management. Originality/value - Risk management is at the core of the agricultural policy and it is of paramount importance to be able to understand behavioural responses to market and policy instruments. This paper contributes to that by suggesting that the focus of current risk analysis and management studies may be too narrowly focused at the farm level

On the rationale of resilience in the domain of safety: A literature review

Resilience is becoming a prevalent agenda in safety research and organisational practice. In this study we examine how the peer-reviewed safety science literature (a) formulates the rationale behind the study of resilience; (b) constructs resilience as a scientific object; and (c) constructs and locates the resilient subject. The results suggest that resilience engineering scholars typically motivate the need for their studies by referring to the inherent complexities of modern socio-technical systems; complexities that make these systems inherently risky. The object of resilience then becomes the capacity to adapt to such emerging risks in order to guarantee the success of the inherently risky system. In the material reviewed, the subject of resilience is typically the individual, either at the sharp end or at higher managerial levels. The individual is called-upon to adapt in the face of risk to secure the continuous performance of the system. Based on the results from how resilience has been introduced in safety sciences we raise three ethical questions for the field to address: (1) should resilience be seen as people thriving despite of, or because of, risk?; (2) should resilience theory form a basis for moral judgement?; and finally (3) how much should resilience be approached as a trait of the individual