Agricultural insurance for development: Past, present, and future

Miguel Robles

Chapter 17 in Agricultural development: New perspectives in a changing world, 2021, pp 563-594 from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Abstract: Agricultural production is a risky activity subject to several contingencies that make farming incomes unstable and unpredictable from year to year. Bakst, Sewell, and Wright (2016) report that the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) identifies five types of farming risk: (1) human and personal risk (such as human health), (2) institutional risk (regarding governmental action), (3) financial risk (such as access to capital), (4) price or market risk, and (5) production risk (such as weather and pests). The HIV/AIDS pandemic in African countries in the early 2000s is an example of a human risk that affected agricultural output and labor supply and demand. Land expropriation, land reforms, and unanticipated changes in the agricultural tax system are examples of institutional risk that can depress investment in the agricultural sector. Nonavailability of funds in the formal or informal financial sector or high interest rates reflecting liquidity scarcity at the beginning of the crop season can limit area planted in a year. Uncertain crop prices at harvest time and input prices during the crop calendar can have severe impacts on farm income and become a social problem when affecting many farmers.

Keywords: agricultural insurance; smallholders; agricultural development; risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/142280

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fpr:ifpric:9780896293830_17

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in IFPRI book chapters from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().