1. Home
2. Conferences
3. 2020 Extension Risk Management Education National Conference

UNDERSTANDING RISK IN AGRICULTURE

John P. Hewlett, Jay Parsons, and Jeffrey E. Tranel

Summary

UNDERSTANDING RISK IN AGRICULTURE
John P. Hewlett, Jay Parsons, and Jeffrey Tranel
United States farm policy enacted since 1996 has created a need for agricultural producers to better understand and manage risk. However, risk is a difficult concept to address because the ideas are challenging and the breadth of solutions is wide. Even where the concept is well understood, few have mastery of the tools and skills needed to properly evaluate alternatives.
RightRisk has been involved in developing teaching simulations, online courses, and risk decision tools since 2001. The Understanding Risk in Agriculture module was recently developed to assist agricultural decision makers, managers, and others better understand how risk might be both better understood and managed.
Understanding Risk in Agriculture is an online, stand-alone, self-study module that includes recorded webinar presentations, an eDocument, as well as professionally narrated course materials. Questions addressed in the module include: What is Risk, Does Risk Matter, Can Risk be Managed, What are the Challenges to Managing Risk, When is Risk Analysis Justified, How are Risky Choices Evaluated, How Are These Concepts Applied in Risk Decision Making, and Where Do we Go From Here.
One of the main points of emphasis within the module is the human aspect of risk management. Specifically, the module explores risk attitudes, emotions and risk behavior, risk and errors in decision making, risk aversion, biases, and heuristics. In addition, the module discusses foundational concepts for understanding risk and its influence via sections addressing the differences between variability and uncertainty that underlie the unknown future, as well as risk literacy.

Details

---