The agriculture ministry has opposed a move to introduce crop insurance terming it ‘unrealistic’ for Bangladesh, a disaster-prone country with huge small-scale farmers, officials said.
The ministry last month forwarded its opinions to the banking and finance division of the ministry finance suggesting that the crop insurance should not be viable without setting up modern weather forecast technology in the country.
Describing Bangladesh as the most vulnerable to natural calamities, the agriculture ministry opined that crop insurance might hamper the food security assuming that the growers could show negligence in growing their crops better due to secure insurance benefit, the officials said.
The ministry also opined that it would be extra burden for the government to pay premium, as most of the country’s farmers are small-scale holders having no land and property.
The agriculture ministry considers that ongoing subsidies and incentives facilities are sufficient to support the affected farmers during the natural calamities, the officials said.
Meanwhile, farmer leaders, agriculturists and development partners are in favour of introducing crop insurance facilities to save the farmers facing crop-damage risks during natural calamities.
In April 7, the Asian Development Bank and the finance ministry signed a grant agreement of $2 million to develop innovative new crop insurance products to give small-scale farmers in Bangladesh income protection from increasingly severe storms and natural disasters.
Under the deal, the Japanese government will provide the grant through Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction while the ADB will administer the fund and provide technical support for implementing the Weather Index-Based Crop Insurance Project, according to an ADB release.
The project will design and pilot crop insurance products over a three-year period in selected districts, with the goal of providing coverage to at least 12,000 farm households.
When asked, Krishi Gobeshona Foundation director (evaluation and planning) Abdul Hamid said the
crop insurance should be introduced in the country to ensure benefit of the farmers, not to serve interest of the insurance companies.
The government could take steps to pay insurance premium of the small-scale farmers as they become more affected during the natural calamities and do not have ability to pay premiums, he said.
According to the ADB, Bangladesh is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world due to its geography, and there are estimates that agricultural gross domestic product during 2005 to 2050 will be 3.1 per cent lower each year as a result of climate change
-With New Age input
