What is the biggest difficulty facing the agriculture insurance pilot programme one month into its implementation?
The first difficulty is that premium rates and pay out schedules have yet to be established to attract farmers to purchase agricultural insurance. Second, the programme requires farmers to follow specific production guidelines.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) recently issued production process guidelines for cultivation and breeding. All farming households involved in the production process will be insured to minimise fragmented farming. We can not wait until farmers finish land aggregation to implement agriculture insurance.
Accordingly, it is possible to insure an entire production zone, meaning anyone in that area, regardless if they have one sao (equivalent to 360 sq.m) or one hectare of production area, is eligible for the insurance provided that they follow MARD production process guidelines as well as all local regulations.
Localities are still identifying production zones for the pilot programme.
What reactions have farmers had to agriculture insurance?
They feel inspired when taking part in the agriculture insurance programme. However, participating households have found it difficult to follow the production guidelines. Non-participating households might find the guidelines tough to follow but we will try our best to help them obey the proper processes.
The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs recently completed its surveys of poor households. By this I mean the number of poor households has been specified.
However, the life of a farmer is precarious and natural disasters could easily push them back into poverty. Therefore, the number of poor households will be adjusted every year, which will also provide a basis to determine how much support they will receive when taking part in the agriculture insurance programme.
What have the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, cities and provinces done to provide agriculture insurance?
We disseminated information about the program-me to farmers in targeted provinces immediately after a related Prime Minister decision came into effect on July 1.
The agriculture ministry also informed them about which natural calamities, epidemic diseases and production process they would be insured against. It invited all localities taking part in the pilot programme to contribute opinions to legal documents relevant to agriculture insurance.
It asked participating localities to set up steering committees for the implementation of agriculture insurance. It is relatively easy to implement insurance with cultivation and aquaculture but that is not the case with the husbandry sector. — VNS
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