Quoting professional poker player and behavioural scientist, Annie Duke, Principal Scientist in Climate Applications at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), Dr Peter Hayman encouraged the audience to reconsider risk based on her view that ‘there are two things in life that determine how it turns out – luck and quality of decision making.’
Hayman delved into his involvement in the GRDC funded RiskWi$e project at the 2023 BCG Main Field Day, held at Kinnabulla on 13 September. The 500 local farmers, industry members and students in attendance were challenged to consider how they use risky information in their decision-making process.
Prompting the audience to think about some good decisions they have recently made, Hayman suggested we often determine the quality of our decisions based on their outcomes. However, in a risky world with much uncertainty, Hayman argued that there isn’t a perfect link between a decision and the outcome. Rather, we always run the risk of making good decisions that don’t turn out well, and bad decisions that do. Noting the role of RiskWi$e in challenging our thinking around risk, Hayman put forward the notion that judgement of whether a decision is good or bad should be disassociated from the outcome, and instead focus on the decision-making process. Through the lens of farming as a human activity with decision making tapping into judgement, relationships, reward and regret, Hayman encouraged the audience to make decisions based on “the best thing to do given information you have at the time”.
Following Senior Meteorologist at BoM, Jonothan How’s presentation in which he predicted an upcoming positive IOD and El Nino climate phase – both of which have since been declared – Hayman used historical climate data as an example of risky information that can be used in decision analysis. Whilst emphasising that an El Nino and positive IOD phase does not guarantee low rainfall, he highlighted the reality that this climate phase increases the likelihood of lower rainfall occurring. He encouraged the audience to utilise tools such as climate forecasting in their decision analysis, noting that whilst they aren’t perfect, they provide scaffolding around the problem of climate risky decisions.
RiskWi$e is a 30-million-dollar national initiative that will run from 2023 to 2028. It seeks to understand and improve the risk-reward outcomes for Australian grain growers by supporting grower on-farm decision-making.
