Managing agricultural risk

The Centre’s move to come out with a new crop insurance policy has not come a moment too soon. The initiative seems keen to address two main impediments to enhance the coverage of crop insurance — high rates of premium under the Modified National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (MNAIS), particularly in relation to the sum insured, and inaccuracies in estimating the extent of damage. It aims at reducing premium rates to 3 per cent from existing levels of 8 to 10 per cent, and using modern mapping methods (such as drones) to improve the assessment of loss arrived through ‘crop cutting experiments’ (CCEs) conducted to estimate yield. The need for crop insurance to cover the entire cropped area — against a fifth at present — cannot be disputed in a country where agriculture is exposed to crisis roughly once in three years (according to the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices). Given the extraordinary levels of risk in agriculture, there is no disputing the demand for comprehensive insurance cover. The poor coverage reflects a supply-side failure. The challenge lies in supplying differentiated, and yet reasonable, products in tune with what farmers in each region need, along with better delivery mechanisms. This would cover a larger area and a wider socio-economic spectrum, going beyond large farmers with access to the formal banking network to marginal farmers, tenants and sharecroppers.

To be fair, crop insurance has evolved over time. Weather-based insurance has sought to address delays in the settlement of claims in the case of yield-based insurance as the results of CCEs take time to trickle in. To ensure micro-level accuracy in estimating losses, the unit area for estimating yield has been brought down to the panchayat level. The MNAIS goes beyond the usual notion of calamity cover to include post-harvest losses and delayed sowing. However, by widening cover, costs and premiums have shot up. What is at work now is a Catch-22 situation: high premium inhibits the spread of insurance, which in turn perpetuates these high rates. In the short run, as the CACP suggests, the Centre and States should shoulder 80 per cent of the premium cost (for both private and public insurers) if it is keen on keeping premiums low. Once the coverage picks up substantially, it can consider reducing its support.

Insurance policies should cover not just yield and weather but price as well so that overproduction is not punished. The sum insured, as the CACP has observed, should approximate the value of output and not restrict itself to input cost. It is mystifying why crop insurance has not been designed like a savings product, like so many life insurance schemes, to make it more attractive. To improve outreach and reduce malpractices, JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile) and the SHG-bank linkage are crucial. If the Centre is able to put an effective crop insurance system in place, it would have infused much-needed optimism into agriculture.