Factors influencing climate change perceptions have vital roles in designing strategies to enrich climate change understanding. Despite this, factors that influence smallholder farmers' climate change perceptions have not yet been adequately studied. As many of the smallholder farmers live in regions where climate change is predicted to have the most negative impact, their climate change perception is of particular interest. In this study, based on data collected from Ethiopian smallholder farmers, we assessed farmers' perceptions and anticipations of past and future climate change. Furthermore, the factors influencing farmers' climate change perceptions and the relation between farmers' perceptions and available public climate information were assessed. Our findings revealed that a majority of respondents perceive warming temperatures and decreasing rainfall trends that correspond with the local meteorological record. Farmers' perceptions about the past climate did not always reflect their anticipations about the future. A substantial number of farmers' anticipations of future climate were less consistent with climate model projections. The recursive bivariate probit models employed to explore factors affecting different categories of climate change perceptions illustrate statistical significance for explanatory variables including location, gender, age, education, soil fertility status, climate change information, and access to credit services. The findings contribute to the literature by providing evidence not just on farmers' past climate perceptions but also on future climate anticipations. The identified factors help policy makers to provide targeted extension and advisory services to enrich climate change understanding and support appropriate farm-level climate change adaptations.

The magnitude of public concerns about agricultural innovations has often been underestimated, as past examples, such as pesticides, nanotechnology, and cloning, demonstrate. Indeed, studies have proven that the agricultural sector presents an area of tension and often attracts skepticism concerning new technologies. Digital technologies have become increasingly popular in agriculture. Yet there are almost no investigations on the public acceptance of digitalization in agriculture so far. Our online survey provides initial insights to reduce this knowledge gap. The sample (n = 2012) represents the German population in terms of gender, age (minimum 18 years), education and size of place of residence. Results showed that if the potential of digital farming technologies (DFT) regarding animal welfare and environmental protection was described, respondents reacted positively. Thus, the general attitudes of respondents toward the benefits of DFT were mostly positive. The approval to increasing adoption rates of particular DFT by providing subsidies was also high. Linear regression models showed that the dominant positive influences on respondents' attitudes toward the benefits of DFT were a generally positive attitude toward farming and a strong trust in farmers in Germany. Confronting respondents with pictures showing DFT resulted in many spontaneous negative associations and general criticism of agricultural production. The latter holds true for DFT in animal husbandry in particular. However, as agriculture as a whole is criticized by many groups in Germany, it is unlikely that benefits from digitalization will significantly increase the public acceptance of agriculture as a whole.

"Stochastic weather and soil conditions are the suggested reasons why farmers tend to apply more than the recommended levels of nitrogen. This study found that uncertainty plays a role in the application decision of farmers but not in the manner typically assumed. Using a time series of field trials of corn yield to nitrogen for the same site, nitrogen was found to be a risk-increasing input suggesting that uncertainty should decrease, rather than increase, a risk-averse farmer's rate of nitrogen application. Similarly, viewing risk as a profit shortfall, in which fertilizer acts in the role of insurance, was also not supported with the empirical results. Instead, the key role of uncertainty is its impact on expected profits. Increasing application rates leads to lower returns in most years but the increase in profits generated under favorable growing conditions results in greater expected profits with a high application strategy." Copyright (c) 2009 Canadian Agricultural Economics Society.

Purpose Hail risk management is essential for successful farm management in German fruit production, particularly because hail events and associated losses have increased in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a detailed risk analysis comparing different strategies to manage hail risk, taking into account farmers’ risk aversion and farm-specific conditions. Design/methodology/approach Within an expected utility framework, two different strategies for managing hail risk are compared: one belonging to the group of financial instruments (hail insurance) and the other to the group of technical instruments (anti-hail net). A unique data set comprising a ten-year time series of orchard-specific hail damage and hail insurance data is used. Findings For orchards with low local hail risk and low yield potential, not using hail risk mitigation is most efficient. For orchards with high local hail risk and high yield potential, anti-hail nets provide the highest certainty equivalents. For orchards with high local risk, but low yield potential, hail insurance is most efficient. For orchards, with low local risk, but high yield potential, the certainty equivalents are higher for anti-hail net, when the farmer is risk neutral or slightly risk-averse. With increasing risk aversion, hail insurance is most efficient, which can be explained by the greater degree of the instrument’s flexibility. Originality/value The novelty of the study lies in the direct comparison of the risk effects of anti-hail nets and hail insurance in fruit production.

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