Key behavioural science concepts applied to farmer decision making and farm risk management

This review synthesises applications of behavioural science approaches to farmer decision making and risk management. First, we identify key behavioural science concepts that have been found to influence the ways in which people make decisions, with illustration from the agricultural sector. These concepts include dispositional factors (e.g. risk preferences, loss and ambiguity aversion, time discounting), social factors (e.g. social norms), and cognitive factors (e.g. biases, heuristics, framing effects). Knowing how these various concepts influence attitudes towards risk helps to (a) better understand why people make decisions the way they do, and (b) design more effective risk management strategies and decision support tools. We present four behavioural science frameworks that can be used as a reference when designing behavioural interventions: the MINDSPACE framework, the EAST framework, the Behavioural Change Wheel model, and the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Key messages from these frameworks are the importance of making the desired option easy, social norms and the influence of peers, making information salient to the individual, and the role that emotions play in our decision process. The RiskWi$e project offers a unique opportunity to apply behavioural science knowledge in research design and extension to help agricultural risk management.