Crop insurance: creation of an integrated information system and quantitative modeling

• Grant number: 09/00092-7
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Young Investigators Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2009
• End date: August 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Agrarian and Natural Resource Economics
• Principal Investigator: Vitor Augusto Ozaki
• Grantee: Vitor Augusto Ozaki
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 10/13158-3 - Influence of El Niño and La Niña on agricultural productivity and implications for rural insurance, BP.IC; 10/02405-0 - Comparison between the Spanish and Brazilian crop insurance schemes: implications for the development of the insurance in Brazil, BP.IC; 10/09073-2 - A study on government programs of agricultural incentive and the benefits of unifying them, BP.IC

Abstract

The agricultural activity has peculiar features different from other forms of economical production. Several random phenomena - mainly climatic - can negatively affect the agricultural results. The severity of the damage is related to the necessary factors of the plant (water, light, temperature, etc.) in its diverse phases of development. One of the most important climatic phenomena that reduces the agricultural productivity is the drought. Throughout the years, the producers had created several different tools to manage their risks. One of the most effective tool to transfer the risk is the insurance market. The international experience shows that the crop insurance has been efficient when protecting the farmers. However, when operated only in private bases the crop insurance market fails to develop. In this context, the participation of the Government by subsidizing the market is crucial for its maintenance. In Brazil, since 2003, the Government has prioritized the development of this market aiming transfer the responsibility of the agricultural debts to the insurance market and also to guarantee the agricultural income to the sector. Nevertheless, one of the main problems to increase its popularity is the lack of an integrated information system to monitoring the harvest, based on climatic information and the remote sensing applied to agriculture. It is important to point out that many climatic research institutions have accurate forecasts and climatic studies applied agriculture, but none of them details in depth the information according to the agricultural insurance needs. The objective of the project is to create a climatic information system and remote sensing integrated to the necessities of the agricultural insurance in order to monitoring the farms, conjugated with the quantitative modeling. (AU)