I have more personal experience than research experience with this issue.  Normally small farmers work with limited resources, which make it difficult to create a strong risk management environment.  However, having a local network of small farmers and larger farmers creates an environment where the network can help each other.  For example, we did not have a tractor, but we would give half of our hay to someone who had a tractor with baler.  We had no need of the extra hay, but the larger farmer did.  Other disasters would arise when the weather turned bad.  By turning to other families in the area, who did not have any crops at risk, we were able to save our harvest.

If one could aid small farmers to create a local collective, as well as, provide a means to quickly communicate between the members, this would create an affordable and local risk management solution.

To answer your first question: Resistance may (among several factors) depend on what cultural/societal context your small farmers find themselves in and what their relationship/perception is of state or private business institutions or companies. Disaster Historian Greg Bankoff (Cultures of Disaster) writes about how Filipinos depend on their family and neighborhood networks for disaster relief rather than becoming policy holders with state-run insurance programs as they generally have a deep mistrust of the government (or private insurance companies for that matter). This might be the case with many developing/emerging economies with a colonial past...in other words, looking at the wider historical context (politics, economics, societal structure) of your small farmer group might explain some of their present insurance-aversion. The Geneva Association and the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative, two insurance think tanks, might have some recent studies on microinsurance of smallholders on their webpages that could be interesting.

there could be several reasons attributing to this:

first, they may be adopting herd behavior, where a decision by a few farmers is followed blindly by the rest

secondly, they may not have the capacity to adopt or pay for the services of well known risk management techniques

Dear John,

In addition to the excellent answers suggested by Sergei, Steven, Eleonora and Robert, I would also recommend some readings such as Greiner, R., Patterson, L. and Miller, O. (2009), “Motivations, risk perceptions and adoption of conservation practices by farmers”, Agricultural Systems, Vol. 99, Issues 2-3, pp. 86-104.

The above study was aimed at investigating the perceptions of risk and issues around motivation associated with the adoption of ‘best management practices’ among graziers. While the focus of the study might have been on ‘BMP’, it would provide you with some insights towards ‘risk management’ given that it falls under the realms of ‘BMP’. While the majority of the studies that I have investigated have mainly being drawn from the construction industry perspective, some commonalities nevertheless among different sectors on while organisations or individuals might resist the adoption of risk management practices. The above study cited (Greiner et al. 2009) identified strong linkages between motivations, and risk attitudes, and the adoption of BMPs. This finding is similar to other studies conducted within the context of the construction industry, and among the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which might be equated to the ‘smallholder farmers’ as posed in your question.

Relative to ‘some of the factors’ affecting RM, I would also recommend reading up the following citation or reference drawn from the Norwegian perspective:

Flaten, O., Lien, G., Koesling, M., Valle, P.S. and Ebbesvk, M. (1995), “Comparing risk perceptions and risk management in organic and conventional dairy farming: empirical results from Norway”, Livestock Production Science, Vol. 95, Iss. 1-2, pp. 11-25

While the above study was more focused on the risk perception and risk management, some insights on some of the socio-economic variables reported are also highly relevant to the issues at hand (i.e. risk and risk management).

Just to draw some comparative analysis between your sector (Smallholder farmers) and SMEs (within the construction industry), Steven rightly pointed to the ‘limited resources’. This appears to a universal problem facing smaller organisations. For example (the list is exhaustive), some of the factors (assuming this to be either barriers or critical success factors), one could point to the lack of knowledge; lack of manpower (same as resources among others), lack of time as the barriers that would be faced by smaller organisations irrespective of the industry. Conversely, the issue of ‘resistance’ as suggested by Eleonora has also being found to affect SMEs within construction (again just to illustrate the similarities facing smaller organisations. Generally, the resistance might be associated with the lack of knowledge & awareness of both the RM practices and benefits, hence requiring a cultural shift of the organisations or the ‘smallholder farmers’ in order to reap the adopted benefits. The behavior change might address some of the problem pointed out be Robert (i.e. Herd Behavior).  By providing examples from a different Industrial perspective such as ‘Construction’, one could then draw upon the lessons learned regarding best practices, implementation, and strategies to overcome the barriers.

Good luck with your research,

Nicholas

Thanks alll for the useful response