Risk Management

Any farming operation is also a business, and because of the nature of agricultural production, that business and its operators are susceptible to risk. Production can be affected by weather and drought, income can be affected by market prices andshifts, government can impinge and farmers can be injured; they all affect the farm business. Areas covered in this book include: * The farm business structure * Weather and drought * Long and short term market fluctuations * Assets and borrowing *Government intervention and exchange rates * Risks to farm operators * Information reliability. Finally the agricultural manager is assisted to analyse their own operation, to plan how best to meet the problems of the farm business. Mike Krause hasover 14 years experience as a professional rural economist and has worked extensively with farmers and fruit growers, helping to identify techniques that will help improve farmer profits. Mike has recently joined an international company calledAgricultural Risk Management Pty. Ltd (ARM). This company specialises in risk analysis and risk management providing the full spectrum of services in risk identification, risk measurement, and insurance based revenue protection risk management inagriculture.