摘要：Few farmers utilize futures and options markets to price their crops despite significanteducational efforts. This study seeks to analyze producer hedging behavior within theframework of the overall marketing behavior. Producer marketing behavior is modeled as asimultaneous choice between cash sales, cooperative marketing and forward contracts, andhedging. A multinomial logit model is used for empirical estimation using data from a surveyadministered to a sample of cotton producers from across the U.S. The most important factorsthat explain the use of forward pricing by cotton producers are producer preferences, farmsize, use of crop insurance, risk aversion, income from government payments and off-farmincome. Risk aversion, off-farm income, crop insurance and some producer perceptions areimportant in the choice of the form of forward pricing (direct hedging vs. cooperativemarketing and forward contracts).
