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This paper analyzes the impact of a Weather-Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) on the Technical Efficiency (TE) of smallholder groundnut farmers in the context of climate change in India. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to study the TE of smallholder farmers, which range between 0.58 and 1, with a mean of 0.79. Using the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) technique, we find that the TE of smallholder farmers improves when they participate in a WBCIS using three matching methods. Increasing the coverage of farmers under a WBCIS can help in reducing smallholder farmers vulnerability to climate change.

'Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries' provides a detailed analysis of the imperfections and inefficiencies that impede the emergence of competitive catastrophe risk markets in developing countries. The book demonstrates how donors and international financial institutions can assist governments in middle- and low-income countries in promoting effective and affordable catastrophe risk financing solutions. The authors present guiding principles on how and when governments, with assistance from donors and international financial institutions, should intervene in catastrophe insurance markets. They also identify key activities to be undertaken by donors and institutions that would allow middle- and low-income countries to develop competitive and cost-effective catastrophe risk financing strategies at both the macro (government) and micro (household) levels. These principles and activities are expected to inform good practices and ensure desirable results in catastrophe insurance projects. 'Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries' offers valuable advice and guidelines to policy makers and insurance practitioners involved in the development of catastrophe insurance programs in developing countries.

The Government of India have introduced the innovative schemes of crop insurance however; most of the farmers are unaware of it. Therefore, it is necessary to check the awareness and performance of farmers about crop insurance and agricultural development schemes in Hisar and Fatehabad districts of Haryana state. Data was collected via interview schedule from 100 farmers selected randomly from these two districts. The study revealed that 86 per cent of the farmers were found aware about the crops included under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojana (PMFBY) followed by premium paid for insurance of the crops (72 %). The data regarding awareness of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) showed that more than half of the respondents had aware about PMKSY. However, majority of respondents (above 64 %) were found not aware about subsidy pattern under scheme and additional benefits for small farmers. Performance of agricultural development schemes predicts that majority of the respondent (87 %) viewed that is performing well. Only 13 per cent of the respondents viewed that the scheme is performing not so good. In case of PMKSY, majority of the respondents (72 %) had opinion that the scheme is performing good. About half of the respondents (52 %) viewed that Agricultural Mechanization for In-Situ Crop Residue Management is performing good. The awareness regarding promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-Situ Crop Residue Management (CRM) indicated that two-third respondents had awareness about the scheme and 62 per cent of them agreed that custom hiring centre established under the scheme.

This report explores the macro-economic and public finance implications of natural disasters, including the role of information and mechanisms for risk spreading, and drawing in particular on evidence from Bangladesh, Dominica and Malawi.Major natural disasters can have severe negative short-run economic and budgetary impacts. Disasters also appear to have adverse longer-term consequences for economic growth, development and poverty reduction. However, negative impacts are not inevitable: sensitivity to natural hazards is determined by a complex, dynamic set of influences. Vulnerability can shift rapidly, especially in countries experiencing economic transformation - rapid growth, urbanization, and related technical and social changes. The report concludes that in order to stem the rising cost of natural disasters globally, hazard risk management concerns need to be integrated into longer-term national investment policies and development strategies and appropriately reflected in the allocation of financial resources, including medium-term financial planning. The generation and dissemination of quality, reliable scientific information should be supported as part of this process. In addition, assessment of the economic and financial impacts of disasters should be extended to include a full reassessment 18 to 24 months after an event, generating vital information on the nature of impacts and underlying causal factors.

Governments in developing countries have been increasingly involved in the support of commercial agricultural (crop and livestock) insurance programs in recent years. A striking example is China, where, with support (and premium subsidies) from the central and provincial governments, the agricultural insurance market grew dramatically to become the second largest market in the world (after the United States) in 2008. In India and Mexico, weather-based crop insurance has been developed on a large scale to protect farmers against the vagaries of the weather. Many other countries have investigated the feasibility of agricultural insurance, and some have implemented pilot programs. This book aims to inform and update public and private decision makers involved in promoting agricultural insurance about recent developments in agriculture insurance. The literature is heavily biased toward the practice and experience of a few very large public-private programs in Northern America and Europe, which are driven by large public financial subsidies. This book provides decision makers with a framework for developing agricultural insurance. It is based on an analytical review of the rationale for public intervention in agricultural insurance and a detailed comparative analysis of crop and livestock insurance programs provided with and without government support in more than 65 developed and developing countries. The comparative analysis is based on a survey conducted by the World Bank's agricultural insurance team in 2008. Drawing on the survey results, the book identifies some key roles governments can play to support the development of sustainable, affordable, and cost-effective agricultural insurance programs.

Extreme heat events cause periodic damage to crop yields and may pose a threat to the income of farmers. Weather index insurance provides payouts to farmers in the case of measurable weather extremes to keep production going. However, its viability depends crucially on the accuracy of local weather indices to predict yield damages from adverse weather conditions. So far, extreme heat indices are poorly represented in weather index insurance. In this study, we construct indices of extreme heat using observations at the nearest weather station and estimates for each county using three interpolation techniques: inverse-distance weighting, ordinary kriging, and regression kriging. Applying these indices to insurance against heat damage to corn in Illinois and Iowa, we show that heat index insurance reduces relative risk premiums by 27%–29% and that interpolated indices outperform the nearest-neighbor index by around 2%–3% in terms of relative risk reduction. Further, we find that the advantage of interpolation over a nearest-neighbor index in terms of relative risk reduction increases as the sample of weather stations is reduced. These findings suggest that heat index insurance can work even when weather data are spatially sparse, which delivers important implications for insurance practice and policy makers. Further, our public code repository provides a rich toolbox of methods to be used for other perils, crops, and regions. Our results are therefore not only replicable but also constitute a cornerstone for projects to come.

\"Crop insurance intends an inclusive insurance protection policy in the situation of crop failure and facilitates stabilizing the earnings of the farmer. An attempt has been made to analyze the progress of crop insurance schemes in Odisha with special insights into the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). The growth and performance of crop insurance of both loanee and non-loanee farmers on different indicators have been estimated to draw a logical inference from the findings. The results revealed that among the earlier schemes, National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) performed better in terms of penetration, area coverage along with many other monetary indicators like premiums paid, claims settled, etc. The penetrations of the NAIS were also found to be significantly positive among physical and financial indicators during the kharif seasons. However, there were a few shortcomings, which led to evolving a novel scheme namely PMFBY replacing earlier schemes. The analysis of various indicators shows that PMFBY covered a higher area under paddy crops, the share of farmers benefited as a percent of farmers insured also witnessed the highest (41.26% in 2017), highest coverage of area as a percentage of gross cropped area (22.12% in 2019). Recently the scheme has been revamped and made voluntary for the cultivators, hence, to make the present scheme (PMFBY) more efficient, it is suggested to provide an active awareness campaign and establish a customer grievance cell at the local level, which would bring in more number of farmers under crop insurance.\"

Through risk management strategies, this study seeks to build resilience of smallholder potato farming households in Tanzania through improved food security status and income level.To do this, we developed a collaborative-based revenue insurance scheme (CoBRIS) for Tanzanian potato smallholder farmers (SHFs) and assessed their willingness to participate and pay for the features of the CoBRIS. About 384 potato SHFs were sampled using a multi-stage sampling approach. A census was also used to gather information from eight micro-insurance companies. Data were gathered using a semi-structured questionnaire, key informant interviews, and desk reviews. For data analysis, the study used the Conditional Logit Model and descriptive statistics. The findings of this study reveal that, about 85 percent of potato SHFs were willing to participate in the CoBRIS contracts. Conversely, the willingness of potato SHFs to pay for CoBRIS contracts was positively influenced by coverage level, indemnity rate, and trust-related factors, but negatively by premium amount and potato-related enterprise factors. This study recommends that, micro-insurance providers like MGen, UAP, and ACRE Africa to keep collaborating with Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives (AMCOS) like Lusitu Agribusiness Group in order to increase the likelihood that potato SHFs will voluntarily participate in and pay for crop-revenue insurance products like CoBRIS. Additionally, since potato SHFs are willing to pay for coverage level and indemnity attributes , micro-insurance providers like MGen, ACRE Africa, and UAP should consider these factors when developing crop insurance products for potato smallholder farmers in Tanzania.

India is home to over one-third of all undernourished children worldwide, and it ranks 94th out of 107 nations in the Global Hunger Index 2020. Instability in production and market risks make agriculture a risky business and directly affect farmers' income levels, thereby impacting food security. This review aimed to understand various features of different crop insurance policies in India and to analyze the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana's (PMFBY) impacts on Indian farmers. A literature search was performed in all popular databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, AGRICOLA, AGRIS, and Google search engines, as well as annual Indian government reports. The keywords \"Crop Insurance\" OR \"Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana\" OR \"National Agriculture Schemes\" AND \"India\" were searched to obtain relevant articles. By using cumulative data, we conducted a multiple regression analysis and a model was developed to estimate the effects of insurance characteristics on farmer coverage for the years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. Agricultural insurance coverage under PMFBY remained low in terms of the number of farmers insured, the area insured, claims paid, and total farmers benefited. Compared to other schemes, the beneficiary and claim premium ratios were substantially lower under the PMFBY. The multiple regression analysis showed that farmers' premiums have a significant effect on the number of farmers insured over time, although the subsidies do not have a significant influence in farmers' insurance participation. Delays in claim settlement, the complexity of the system, and a lack of awareness among farmers are the major weaknesses of the PMFBY. Greater use of digital media could help spread awareness of these schemes among farmers.