How stable are farmers' risk perceptions? A follow up study of one community in the Karoo

The Karoo Farm Management Survey sampled risk perceptions in 2012 and 2016. Round 2 added fracking, uranium prospecting, weather weirding and political instability to the list of potential threats. This analysis compares farmers' assessments of these new threats to those analysed previously. New threats were rated riskier than the old ones and in four cases the original item scores increased significantly. Resurveying improved sampling adequacy as measured by Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin tests in the principal component analysis and allowed labour regulation to be identified as the key concern in the regulation risk component. Adding the four additional threats changed the structure of these refined risk perceptions. It identified as the main component of farmers' risk perceptions a component that was labelled "unsympathetic government". The seven items which substantially on this factor are increased predator and farm worker tenure regulations, falling and unstable commodity prices, the issue of fracking and prospecting licenses without consulting landholders and increased political instability. The other components of risk perception were more familiar Frequently conducted representative surveys of farmers' risk perceptions could insure against the adverse effects of the governments' proposed land and labour market reform plans and could assist in formulating effective climate change messages. Keywords: arid areas, agriculture, risk perceptions, principal components analysis