Résumé
The aims of our paper are to identify economic determinants of the on-farm cultivar selection and to empirically characterise farmers' diversification strategies. We focus on the private decision making process involving the choice of rice cultivars and the corresponding allocation of farmland. Our results rely on original data collected during the spring of 2009 involving a sample of 86 economic units growing rice. We studied the determinants of the number of cultivars grown on farm and then factors explaining the portfolio choice in terms of commercial rice grain with a multinomial logit model, with three alternatives: a) to be specialised into a particular type of rice grain (long or round); b) to grow simultaneously these two types; c) to be diversified with niche market varieties. Our results confirm the importance of the interactions between markets related benefit and the management constraints on land and labour.