Drought risk management in France: the role of irrigation in farmers'risk management strategies
La gestion du risque de sécheresse en France: rôle de l'irrigation dans les stratégies de gestion du risque de l'agriculteur
Résumé
The aim of this study was to improve our understanding of the way French farmers manage production risks, especially the risk of drought. To this end, we analyze the role of irrigation in farmers' risk management strategies. Based on FADN accountancy data, we jointly estimate farmers' attitudes to risk and their production decisions under risk. Because not all farmers irrigate we use additional preliminary regressions to correct for sample selection bias. Model results show that water input increases the mean and decreases the variance of production. Farmers are risk averse for median values of mean prots but risk lovers when they generate high gains or high losses in the production process.