Abstract: The extreme dependence of Indian agriculture on climatic and weather conditions poses a threat to the livelihood of majority of Indian farmers making agriculture a riskier business. In this context, the need and benefits of crop insurance schemes as an important tool of risk mitigation hardly need any elaboration. Crop Insurance provides a safety net for farmers to mitigate losses arising from climatic shocks and also encourages them to continue investing in inputs and technology to increase yields and household income. For fulfilling this need, Government of India has made experiments and efforts by introducing various schemes of crop insurance from time to time. The latest in the series, PMFBY has launched in 2016.With the emergence of newer and newer schemes of crop insurance in India, farmer participation in these schemes are not yet satisfactory. What is more striking is the high disparity in the coverage of crop insurance across different states in India. In states like Kerala, the coverage is very low where one third of the workforce depends on agriculture and allied activities seem to be paradoxical. In the recent flood fury that has severely impacted a large section of over 19 lakh farmers in Kerala, only a little over 46000 farmers has insured their crops, which reflects that the farmers are still unaware of the details of crop insurance schemes. The poor implementation of crop insurance schemes in many states suggests the need for a state-specific approach in the formulation and implementation of these schemes. This research paper made an attempt to analyse the extent of coverage of crop insurance schemes in Kerala focusing on a micro-level study and identify the demand and supply constraints in the growth of crop insurance schemes in Kerala.
Keywords: Crop Insurance, PMFBY, Agriculture, Risk Mitigation.
Title: Crop Insurance Schemes in Kerala: Extent, Challenges and Solutions
Author: JIYA TOM
International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations
ISSN 2348-1218 (print), ISSN 2348-1226 (online)
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