EXPLORING AND COMPARING RISK ATTITUDES OF ORGANIC AND NON-ORGANIC HAZELNUT PRODUCERS IN SAMSUN PROVINCE OF TURKEY

Abstract

The purposes of this research were comparing the risk attitudes of organic and non-organic hazelnut producers and determining the barriers additional to their risk attitudes towards conversion to organic agriculture in Samsun province of Turkey. The Equally Likely Certainty Equivalent (ELCE) model was used based on the data collected from 64 randomly selected non-organic producers and all organic hazelnut producers (39). Research results revealed that organic hazelnut producers were more risk loving than non-organic producers. It was also found that the variables of education level of operators, farm income, total capital, time allocated outside the farm, farm land area, size of hazelnut orchard, number of hazelnut plots and total information score were other barriers for conversion to organic hazelnut production, in addition to the producers’ risk attitudes. INTRODUCTION In order to stimulate conversion to organic, there is a need for detailed information about motivation for and barriers to conversion. Policy makers should therefore focus on supporting farmers during conversion period. The risk attitudes of farmers and the risk involved in organic agriculture are often considered to be potential barriers to organic conversion. Different risk attitudes of current organic farmers may also reflect their position as innovators, implying a greater willingness to accept higher risk levels compared to non-organic farmers. Many previous studies have focused on understanding organic and non-organic farmers’ perceptions of risk and risk management (Shneeberger et al., 2002; Lien et al., 2003; Koesling et al., 2004; Lien et al., 2006) and farmers’ attitudes, preferences and goals, and their impacts on the choice of farming systems (Gardebroek, 2002; Knight et al., 2003; Flaten et al., 2004; Darnhofer et al., 2005; Archer and Kludze, 2006). However, no study has been carried out to elicit the risk attitudes of organic hazelnut producers in Turkey. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are (i) to elicit and compare risk attitudes of organic and non-organic hazelnut producers in Samsun province of Turkey, (ii) to explore the socio-economic characteristics of producers and farms associated with risk attitudes and (iii) to determine the additional barriers to producers’ risk attitudes to conversion by means of comparing risk lovers in organic and non-organic producers.