An assessment of agricultural risk and diversification on farming families' living standard under fuzzy conditions

The existence of substantial agricultural risk poses severe implications for farmers. Farm families that are heavily dependent on few crops/farm activities are much more vulnerable to the effects of agricultural risk relative to the more diversified farmers. This book seeks to explain the dynamics surrounding agricultural risk and individual farm diversification status faced by farming households, and to measure their impact on household living standard. Fuzzy theory was found to be attractive for the purpose of this study given the presence of categories that are either imprecise, and/or complex in their construction as is the case of the core areas in living standard and agricultural risk. Fuzzy theory is useful in that it provides a mathematical framework for handling categories that permit partial membership or membership in degree. Its application therefore allows for the systematic handling of the vagueness associated with living standard and its explanatory variables, particularly agricultural risk. Several strategies targeting the agricultural risk factor were identified and tested using a linear programming approach. Given however the uncertain environment in which farm planning decision making is undertaken, a fuzzy linear programming model was applied in order to capture the fuzzy nature of this environment. The method involves the resolution of the linear programming problem where all the parameters are fuzzy numbers reflecting the uncertain nature of these variables.