Factors influencing the risk attitude of vegetable farmers in Kerala

Vegetables play a major role by providing nutritional, economic security and producing higher returns per unit area. But vegetable farmers have to face diverse kinds of climate, biological, price and financial risks. An important factor in understanding the behavioural and managerial decisions of farmers is to understand their attitude towards risk. This study investigated the risk attitude of vegetable farmers in special agricultural zones, socio-economic characteristics of farmers and identified the factors which influences the risk attitude. A survey was conducted by involving 270 respondents from 6 agro ecological units. Purposive as well as simple random sampling techniques were adopted for the study. The data were collected with the help of structured interview schedule and processed into frequency, percentage, correlation analysis to draw the conclusion. Results showed that majority of the farmers were in medium risk attitude category and the factors such as area under vegetable cultivation, education, annual income, irrigation potential, extension participation, social participation and innovative proneness were positively and significantly related with the risk attitude of vegetable farmers.