Farmers’s Choice to Risk Management Strategies of Corn Farming in Sigi District Central Sulawesi

Assessment Institute for Agricultural Technology Central Sulawesi

^* Corresponding author: sulistyawati79@gmail.com

Abstract

Corn has a very significant contribution in the national economy as one of main food crop commodities. As a strategic commodity, corn has big potency even in covid-19 pandemic time, corn relatively resilient compare to other commodities in Central Sulawesi.

However the level of corn productivity will relate to the adoption of technology and the farmers’s choices to cope with risk, both production and marketing. Therefore, the study aims to know farmers’s choices to corn farming risk management strategies. A survey had been conducted to 75 respondents across the three districts in Sigi Central Sulawesi, and a quantitative analysis approach was applied in the study. Data were analyzed using descriptive and multinomial logit analysis. The result showed that mostly of the corn farmers have no spesific risk management strategy due to the limit of information and awareness. While a second number already aware but not use spesific strategies. The rest of respondents have adopted certain strategies for managing risk but not compensatory for marketing’s risk yet. Some farmers gave credence to engage with the not formal contract or middleman as buyers and supplier

for the production input and thus, becoming vulnerable position for the farmers. Variables that significantly gave effect on the choice of risk management strategies are: education, farm size, activity in farmer group, alternative commodity, and propensity to take a risk.