Bohol solon wants risk insurance for farmers
Bohol 3rd district Representative Arthur Yap recently pushed the Senate to file a counterpart bill of his House Bill 3560 allowing the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) to offer index-based reinsurance to protect the farmers from damages due to calamities.
“The plight of Filipino farmers needs multifaceted interventions from both the government and private sectors,” said Yap, a former agriculture secretary and now chair of the House committee on economic affairs, during the recent Weather Index-Based Insurance (WIBI) conference in Mindanao.
Yap said he wanted an updated crop insurance, warehouse receipts law, and agricultural guarantee funds, as among the means to make Filipino farmers competitive. “The great challenge is our capability to give financial support to the farmers to allow them to plant again. We have to have that kind of crop insurance program that will bail out the farmers from the impact of climate change,” he said.
“Farmers are the constant casualties of climate change, and they should not wait before their crops are wiped out by calamity before getting rescue from the government,” said the Boholano congressman.
Yap lauded the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), under its country director, Titon Mitra, WIBI project manager Israel Dela Cruz, project supervisor Yusuke Taishi, and PCIC president Jovy Bernabe for showing that Weather IndexBased Insurance is realizable.
“The ability to pay out cash early, at different stages of an unfolding calamity, without having to wait for a total wipe-out, is what will give our farmers and our vulnerable poor, the chance to save what they can and prevent more losses and damages,” Yap said.
Yap also cited the practice in Africa and other countries where “pay-outs are what prevent farmers from selling their livestock and moving to cities.” He also said that in India, Mexico, Africa and the Caribbean, farmers have risk-transfer mechanisms and pay-out systems for their people who are working.”
In India, millions of farmers are insured not only for crop wipe-outs but also for crop damages throughout the planting season. “Farmers need not wait for the wipe out of their crops to get paid,” he said.
In Mexico, LGUs are taking out indexbased insurance for their constituents and in Africa, the African Risk Capacity, consisting of African countries, have banded together using sovereign funds to insure 160 million African farmers, against weather-borne and -related diseases, and damages due to drought, flooding and cyclones, Yap said.
Yap’s HB 3560 seeks for the over-haul of the crop insurance system of the Philippines by shifting the system to index-based direct insurance and reinsurance policies.
“This move will clearly signal to the private sector and capital markets that the Philippines is serious about this program to help our farmers, and secure food production in our country,” he added.