Atitudes dos produtores de abacaxi em relação ao risco - Estado da Paraíba

Abstract

The major purpose of this study is to analyze the problems faced by researchers, extensionists and farmers when they are to decide which agricultural technologies should be investigated, recommended or used. Given the agricultural environment highly subject to weather conditions, where risk plays an important role and is the basic decision making element, the classical hypothesis of profit maximization may not always be the most appropriate since the farmer may have other objective in mind. For this reason, this study is aimed at measuring the risk aversion (or preference) of pineapple producers from the state of Paraiba and evaluate its impact on the decision to adopt technological innovations. The geographical area of the study includes the municipios (counties) of Sape, Mari and Mamanguape and the data. used was obtained from a survey selected on direct interviews with randomly selected pineapple farmers in the region. The methodology used is based on Bernoulli's decision theory which takes into account the decision - maker's utility function and subjective probabilities. The results obtained were quite consisient with the typical behavier of Nocrtheastern farmers, i.e. The great majority of interviewed farmers showed aversion to risk. The study also found that the farmer's behavier is not being influenced by variables such as age, education, availability of labor, cultivated area, farm income and level of. indebtedness. Likewise, the typical behavior of farmers in the region (risk aversion) was not found to be influencing the adoption of technological innovations by explanatory variables considered in the study.