An emerging ‘Snapshot’ of risky decisions in grain systems

November 10th, 2023

As part of the initiation of RiskWi$e, a quickfire baseline survey was developed and is being rolled out across RiskWi$e workshops. We now have more than 425 responses and are starting to see some patterns emerge.

Where we are at

As of early March 2024, we have 432 respondents who have participated in the RiskWi$e baseline survey (74% growers). This has come from 41 workshops with interactions from 24 groups. Well done to Mallee Sustainable Farming (MSF; 12.5% of the dataset) and Grain Orana Alliance (GOA ; 11.1%) for leading the way with data collection. So far, South Australia is leading the way with 35% of the dataset, followed closely by NSW (33%).

Respondents who have participated in the RiskWi$e baseline survey by state.

As RiskWi$e has been initially focused on Nitrogen, so has the risky decisions discussed so far (60%), but as new themes emerge, we hope that dataset will evolve with more decision processes for those themes being added into the dataset.

Emerging learnings

Of course, it is early in this process and the dataset remains small and patchy. However, we can start to extrapolate some learnings that help us piece together the starting point for RiskWi$e. The key one to explore today is around perception of risky decision process related to the RiskWi$e outcome statement (i.e. ‘80% of grain growers articulate their production management decisions in terms of probability of upside returns (reward) offset against the associated downside risks’). In terms of addressing that outcome statement, the initial results suggest we are already beyond that: 79.7% of growers say they think in probabilities! 

But let’s unpack this with a few extra steps – it’s one thing to say you think in probabilities but another to have a good decision process informing your probability base thinking!

  1. Seeking Information: Making good decisions requires inputs from multiple sources to ensure a balanced assessment of various scenarios – 70% of growers identify using either an advisor or discussing with other growers;
  2. Calculation Mindset: Making good decisions should be founded on a calculation mindset, not an intuition mindset (as an overbias on intuition can lead to biases in decision making and incorrect probability estimation) – 83% say they are not primarily intuition focused;    
  3. Profitability Mindset: Assing a wider variety of risks requires a mindset that is primarily profitability oriented (as opposed to production oriented, because the lens of analysis of risk is much narrower if focused on production only) – 83% say they are not production focused;
  4. Undertaking Calculations: Ensuring an understanding of probabilities through calculation is important to a good decision process –52% of growers say they are undertaking calculations using spreadsheets, software or calculators; and
  5. Revision process: Reviewing prior decision processes (not just outcomes) is crucial to ensuring that biases are clear and to identify where subsequent improvements to decision process could be improved. – 62% say they are informally or formally reviewing their prior decision process.

The above numbers are for each element of a good decision process, but what happens if we look at doing all of them together? The initial 81% of growers thinking in probabilities scales down to only 10% who are doing each of the above 6 elements. About a third of growers are doing 3 or less of the 6 elements! Based on that, we can see that there is a lot of work ahead for RiskWi$e! 

How will we use this for RiskWi$e MEL?

Based on this approach, we have the origins of the Monitoring and evaluation approach for RiskWi$e. We would like to use this collection method to monitor changes and hopefully see more calculation, a wider profitability lens, more review of decision process and higher comfort to risky decisions.  

Risky decision-making processes should become:

  • More informed by calculation
  • More profitability focused (wider risk lens)
  • With a more reviewed decision process
  • Leading to higher comfort

More information and key links

For further guidance, please contact Dr Brendan Brown, CSIRO: brendan.brown@csiro.au