ATTITUDES OF VEGETABLE FARMERS TOWARDS RISK IN THE JORDAN VALLEY

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to examine the vegetable farmers’ attitudes towards risk in the Jordan Valley. In order to measure risk attitudes, utility functions for vegetable farmers in the Jordan Valley were estimated by using the Von Neumann – Morgenstern model. From the estimated utility functions, the risk attitudes coefficient for each farmer was measured. Of the total random sample of 200 farmers from the middle Ghor in the Jordan Valley, a purpose sample of 50 vegetable farmers was proportionally selected, i.e. 13 farmers (26%), 15 farmers (30%), and 22 farmers (44%) fell into the risk avert, risk neutral and risk taker categories, respectively. To analyze the relationship between farmers' personal characteristics such as age, education, farm size, family size, experience in agriculture and their risk attitudes, a multiple linear regression model was used. Linear, semi-log, and double-log equations were used. Of these, the semi-log equation proved the best. The regression results of the study indicated that the coefficient of farm size (X3) and the coefficient of family size (X5) were statistically significant at the 5% level of significance.