farmers in the recent year points to increase in market prices of all crops (compare
Tables 5 and 6). This may corroborate the sharp increase in food price inflation
during the last few years.
7 Risk Mitigation
7.1 Crop Insurance
One of the standard ways of mitigating risk in the face of climate change is through
crop insurance. Unfortunately, however, use of crop insurance is not wide spread in
Karnataka as we observe that among our sample households, only 17 % of the
households are covered by insurance scheme while the rests have remained totally
uncovered (Fig. 5) and consequently will be driven to a distress situation in the
event of crop failure.
One of the major reasons for not taking crop insurance is lack of awareness
among farmers and the absence of usable insurance scheme in the regions. Thus, we
feel that formulation of appropriate crop insurance schemes as per need of specific
regions is of significant importance. We also notice from our sample that around
40 % of the farmers are not interested in crop insurance (Fig. 6) as the area based
approach of the insurance scheme and the resulting conditionalities do not appeal
to them.
Indemnity under the “area approach” is offered as per the results of crop-cutting
experiments for which each year a certain number of plots with the insured crops in
Table 6 Summary measures of prices from primary survey from different households: 2009–10
Paddy
Ragi
Sugar
Maize
Mulbery
Cotton
Mean
877
883
1217
766
123
2514
Median
850
800
1100
770
120
2500
Mode
900
800
1100
800
120
2200
Source Field Survey
17
83
Insured
Not Insured
Share of Households who Have Insured the Crop
Fig. 5 Share of households
with crop insurance. Source
Field Survey
256
M. Rajeev et al.
Tables 5 and 6). This may corroborate the sharp increase in food price inflation
during the last few years.
7 Risk Mitigation
7.1 Crop Insurance
One of the standard ways of mitigating risk in the face of climate change is through
crop insurance. Unfortunately, however, use of crop insurance is not wide spread in
Karnataka as we observe that among our sample households, only 17 % of the
households are covered by insurance scheme while the rests have remained totally
uncovered (Fig. 5) and consequently will be driven to a distress situation in the
event of crop failure.
One of the major reasons for not taking crop insurance is lack of awareness
among farmers and the absence of usable insurance scheme in the regions. Thus, we
feel that formulation of appropriate crop insurance schemes as per need of specific
regions is of significant importance. We also notice from our sample that around
40 % of the farmers are not interested in crop insurance (Fig. 6) as the area based
approach of the insurance scheme and the resulting conditionalities do not appeal
to them.
Indemnity under the “area approach” is offered as per the results of crop-cutting
experiments for which each year a certain number of plots with the insured crops in
Table 6 Summary measures of prices from primary survey from different households: 2009–10
Paddy
Ragi
Sugar
Maize
Mulbery
Cotton
Mean
877
883
1217
766
123
2514
Median
850
800
1100
770
120
2500
Mode
900
800
1100
800
120
2200
Source Field Survey
17
83
Insured
Not Insured
Share of Households who Have Insured the Crop
Fig. 5 Share of households
with crop insurance. Source
Field Survey
256
M. Rajeev et al.