The purpose of this research is to investigate the cognitive perception of risk among Polish farmers and the factors which have an impact on this perception. Statistical analysis and logit models were applied for analysing the representative poll taken in February and March 2019 in Poland (N=200). Farmers' risk perception is dominated by the subjective factors (average loss caused by drought in the previous year, frequency of other types of impact of drought, catastrophic potential of drought risk, immediacy of effect, the degree to which the risk is known to science, number of farms susceptible to drought, trust in experts' assessment of drought, trust in the media informing about drought, age and level of education) to a much higher extent than by the objective ones (monthly income, specialising in plant output, high-cost crops, the share of income from farming in the whole income).