CHENNAI: India is a country where the inconsistent monsoon coupled with natural disasters like floods and drought badly affect agricultural output and the welfare of the farmer. Recent farmer agitations have reflected the distress faced by the farming community which had accumulated over several seasons of poor output and therefore poor return on investment.
Crop insurance schemes aim at mitigating the risk that agriculture as an economic activity faces.
The Prime Minister’s Fasal Bima Yojana, introduced in February 2016 after rolling back earlier schemes, was directed at these efforts. Keeping this in mind, Berber Kramer, an
economist with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), US, will speak on “Innovative solutions to agricultural risk management in the context of India's crop insurance schemes” at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation on July 11.
Kramer is a research fellow in the markets, trade and institutions division of IFPRI, and has led a study by IFPRI on crop insurance in India for the year 2017.
She has worked in several developing countries on topics relating to farmers’ financial behaviour and has been lauded by the central government and Punjab and Haryana governments for her innovations in crop insurance in India.
Crop insurance schemes aim at mitigating the risk that agriculture as an economic activity faces.