Author
Bergtold, Jason S.
Understanding the factors that affect a farmer’s credit source is useful for lending institutions to more effectively target customers and provides insight into credit sources that would be affected sooner if a credit crisis would occur and the characteristics that are correlated with a customer using a particular lending institution. Results of this paper suggest that the customers of commercial banks would be the most at risk as they are the most leveraged. Results also show that as conditions deteriorate, farmers add more lending institutions and are also more likely to use a commercial bank or nontraditional lender.
When considering adoption or intensification of existing conservation practices, farmers have unique, subjective views of the associated risks. These individual risk perceptions could have important implications for conservation adoption or intensification. As a result, traditional policy approaches to encourage conservation agriculture may be inefficient. This study examines conservation adoption, with special consideration given to yield-risk perceptions. We present a conceptual model of perceived yield risk and estimate bivariate probit models using survey data. Results indicate that positive practice perceptions, particularly with respect to soil fertility, and opportunities for on-farm trialing may encourage adoption.