Journal of Experimental Agriculture International

The study was conducted to evaluate risk management practices in rice production in Abia State, Nigeria with the specific objectives to: (a) examine the profile of rice producers (b) identify sources of risk and the degree of influence on rice production. (c) examine appropriate risk management Practices. Data for the study were collected using well structured questionnaires administered on 60 farmers who were obtained through random sampling technique. Data were analysed using mean, frequency table, percentage, w-statistics and Pearson Criterion. Results of the study indicate that the highest risk sources to rice production were technical and political risk with mean rank of 1.29 and 2.29 respectively. The w-statistics was calculated to be 0.674 implying that concordance of rice producers’ judgment should be regarded as satisfactory hence can be used for policy formulation given that it was significant at 1% probability level. It is recommended that farmers should adopt technical methods of handling risk such as use of improved variety of seed, fertilizer, and pesticide in controlling risk. Also the government institutions charged with the responsibility of making the inputs available should be strengthened while extension services by government agencies should be reorganised to carryout effective extension services, on how to use the inputs. Besides, there should be rice insurance scheme to cover disaster like flood