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Crop insurance in the spotlight
5 July 2018
To spread awareness of the importance of insuring crops and build trust for the product among Cambodian farmers, the German national development agency, known as GIZ, and insurance companies held yesterday the Kingdom’s first workshop on training crop insurance advisers.

Speaking yesterday at the workshop ‘Training Trainers on Crop Insurance Literacy,’ Günter W. Riethmacher, GIZ country director, said crop insurance gives farmers the confidence they need to start investing in their fields and treat their farming operations as a business.

“As farmers learn that insurance companies can cover certain risks that they might face, they can make investments in their farms that they previously might have avoided because of the risks.

“This means that farmers can make the most productive use of their scarce resources and make their farm as profitable as possible,” Mr Riethmacher said.

Crop insurance is a promise between farmer and insurer, Mr Riethmacher explained. It allows a person to pay a small amount of money in advance in exchange for a promise that when a bigger loss occurs, the insurance company will return the insured person to his initial financial position, he said.

The workshop, which was attended by about 20 people, sought to train insurers, NGOs and government officials on crop insurance and equip them with the skills they need to efficiently convey to farmers how insurance works and what are its benefits.

Ty Sokhun, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Agriculture, said crop insurance can contribute to poverty reduction, and can minimise the economic damage caused by droughts, floods and climate change.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50508188/c ... spotlight/

It would be nice if details outlined qualifications to obtain the insurance. For instance are farmers required to use excessive amounts of insecticides and fertilizers to be covered by policies? Sounds good, but specifics are lacking.

January 11, 2019
Experts discuss crop insurance

Players in the agriculture industry yesterday discussed the opportunities and challenges in creating a nationwide crop insurance scheme for small-scale farmers in a workshop that included the participation of the German development agency GIZ.

Attendees highlighted the need for cooperation among all industry players to implement the scheme, regulate the sector and raise awareness of the importance of insuring crops.

Speaking at the workshop, which was held in Phnom Penh, GIZ Cambodia senior advisor Claudius Bredehoeft said that to scale-up crop insurance for small-scale farmers there is a need to create a more enabling legal and regulatory environment while increasing data availability and accessibility.

He said the technical capacity of insurance and reinsurance companies, as well as the government and development partners, needs to be strengthened to enable the creation of a crop insurance scheme using RIICE technology.

RIICE Technology stands for ‘Remote Sensing-based Information and Insurance for Crops in Emerging Economies’. It is a public-private development partnership project to improve food security by supporting smallholder rice farmers in Southeast Asia through satellite technology and crop yield insurance.

Agriculture plays a key role in the country’s economy and in the fight against poverty, but it is the most vulnerable industry to natural disasters, Mr Bredehoeft said.

Mr Bredehoeft said crop insurance schemes not only protect farmers, but increase food security as well. “Experiences from other countries show that the investment in agriculture is increasing when risk mitigation solutions are provided to the farmer,” Mr Bredehoeft added.

Crop insurance schemes are difficult to implement since they require the participation of a variety of players, said Chamroeurith Youk, managing director of Forte Insurance (Cambodia) Plc, adding that very few crop insurance projects are successful.

Since 2015, Forte Insurance has piloted a crop insurance project, benefiting 200 households in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Pursat, Siem Reap, and Kampong Thom.

Mr Youk said lack of cooperation among the different actors has proven a strong burden for the project. He said more government participation is required, adding that it will take at least three more years for the programme to run smoothly.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50568037/e ... insurance/