Risk Attitudes of Organic and Conventional Hazelnut Producers in Turkey

Understanding farmers’ attitudes and responses to agricultural risks is important for designing financial support services and effective extension activities. Risk attitudes of farmers are also one of the critical barriers for conversion to organic agriculture. Few studies have been conducted to explore and compare risk perceptions between organic and conventional farmers. The purposes of this research were to elicit and compare the risk attitudes of organic and conventional Turkish hazelnut producers and to determine the barriers additional to their risk attitudes toward conversion to organic agriculture in the Terme district of Samsun, Turkey. The Equally Likely Certainty Equivalent (ELCE) model was used to elicit responses from producers. The data used in this study were collected by using a structured questionnaire administered to both 64 randomly selected conventional hazelnut producers and all organic hazelnut producers (39) in the research area. Research results revealed that organic hazelnut producers were less risk averse than conventional producers. It was also found that the variables of education level of operators, farm income, total assets, 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. Providing better extension services and farmers’ training activities relating to organic agriculture and land consolidation, focusing on raising the educational level of producers, facilitating producers with greater access to credit to increase farm land and to enhance farm assets are factors that may accelerate the process of conversion to organic hazelnut production.