By Molly Coleman
Agriculture is Arkansas’s largest industry, and its future hinges on one resource: water. An economist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is leading a major research effort to understand how farmers make decisions about irrigation in order to better recognize the pressures they face and identify solutions that could help Arkansas agriculture thrive for generations.
Dr. Kent Kovacs, associate professor of economics and finance, is part of a multi-institutional team dedicated to analyzing how farmers’ risk preferences shape water use in agriculture within the Lower Mississippi River Basin. The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, explores the complex relationship between economics, the environment, and human decision-making.
With a Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Davis, Kovacs is a natural resource and environmental economist, meaning he studies how the natural world is affected by economic activity. His current work focuses on water resource economics, an area centered on how water is withdrawn from the environment and used in economic systems.
“Natural resource economics asks how we make the best use of the earth’s resources to conduct our economic activity as effectively as possible,” Kovacs said.
Kovacs’ team is designing a survey that gathers farmer perspectives alongside hydrologic and economic models. After receiving approval from the Institutional Review Board, the researchers are preparing to begin data collection. The survey aims to assess farmers’ risk and time preferences.
“By understanding how risk-averse, risk-neutral, or risk-loving a producer is, we can better understand their choices in terms of water use,” Kovacs said. Although the project is still in its early stages, integrating farmers’ real-world experiences is central to the team’s approach.
Source : ualr.edu