Crop insurance needed due to climate change: CSE

India needs an "effective, inclusive and universal" crop insurance scheme to act as a safety net for farmers as frequency of extreme weather events due to climate change is likely to increase in future, a green body said on Friday.

Noting that the new crop insurance policy is a step in the right direction but needs improvements, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said that insurance unit is still not at individual farmer level which is a major problem in compensating losses of the individual farmers.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently approved the new crop insurance scheme – Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY). CSE said that the new scheme will replace two schemes – National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) and the modified NAIS (MNAIS). 

"The frequency of extreme weather events and slow onset events such as droughts are likely to increase in the future due to climate change. India needs an effective, inclusive and universal insurance scheme to act as a safety net for farmers. PMFBY is a step in the right direction, but it requires some key changes to improve its effectiveness," said Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General, CSE.

The green body said the insurance unit still is based on the administrative unit such as block, mandal, nyay panchayat, and others. "With such a large Insurance Unit (IU), loss estimation at the individual farm levels is never accurate. This means that some farmers will continue to get less money compared to their losses and some more. This has been a major concern voiced by farmer representatives and activists for a long time," CSE said.