摘要：Agriculture remains a high-risk industry. Numerous past studies have focussed on thecritical importance of risk in the decision-making process (Anderson, Dillon and Hardaker,Hardaker; Huirne and Anderson; Robinson and Barry). Combating risk in agriculture has been,and continues to be, one of the greatest challenges to producers and policy makers alike. Theinherent biophysical nature of agricultural and livestock systems combined with various externalstimuli makes it vulnerable to multiple sources of risk. These sources emanate from both theproduction environment, as well as from the market, technological and social environments thatcharacterizes agriculture. Further, the nature of risk in the production environment is complicatedby interaction between these multiple sources of risk. This interaction will ultimately influencethe overall exposure to risk as well as choice of avenues for risk management. For example, lowcrop yields along with precipitation during harvest time could significantly increase total riskexposure that a producer might face. Hence, both the timing and severity of individual riskevents is critical in assessing the overall risk that producers face in crop production. Modelersand decision-makers must be cognizant of the multiple facets of the agricultural risk environmentfor efficient decision making.
