66 / SEEDWORLD.COM OCTOBER 2017 responses, areas of risk that farmers find most important when managing their farm businesses were identified and ranked. The nature of the experiment conducted facilitates estimation of preference shares (by design summing to 100 percent total), which represent the relative ranking of importance among the five risk categories. Similar to previous studies, production risk is still the most important source of risk for most farmers in the sample, with a mean estimated preference share of 36 percent. Producing physical output is the fundamental operation of any farm business, and the inherent risk associated with pro- duction agriculture continues to be farmers’ primary reported risk management concern. With a 26 percent share and a 19 percent share, financial risk and marketing risk, respectively, are the next most important sources of risk for producers surveyed. While these two risk areas are obviously closely related, farmers previously ranked marketing risk, specifically commodity price risk, as one of the top two sources of risk they face. This adjustment in ranking is a clear indication of the impact of the current economic downturn on how farmers view risk, and provides evidence of the financial stress that many farm businesses currently face. Lastly, human risk, which had a 12 percent share, and legal risk, which had a 7 percent share, were the lowest ranking risk areas for the farmers surveyed. While it is not surprising that these “non-traditional” risk areas rank lowest (relatively), it is important to note that these two sources of risk are still non- trivial for farmers. Although they are not as important relative to other sources of risk studied, the awareness of today’s farm managers to human and legal risks affecting their farms is likely growing. “These attitudes and their resulting behaviors have impor- tant implications for the way agribusinesses market and sell to commercial producers,” says Gunderson. “And at a time when retailers know they need to bring deeper value than just a prod- uct, this research has become increasingly important.” The implications of these rankings are far reaching. By better understanding your farm customers, specifically their views of the risks they face, you can better tailor how you engage and the products and services you provide. SW “At a time when retailers know they need to bring deeper value than just a product, this research has become increasingly important.” — Michael Gunderson