Agricultural insurance and evaluation of World and Turkish practices

It is well known that history of agricultural insurance practices date back some time in 18th century. The first practices of agricultural insurance, which started in Europe, failed since insurance agencies did not have reliable statistical data about climate, risks, crops, soil structure, etc and some catastrophic risks are involved. New developments on space technology enabled risk mapping, damage assessment, and created favorable conditions for determining premium rates. The most widely used insurance program in the world is ?multi-peril crop insurance?. There are ?coinsurance pools?, which enables risk sharing, in Spain, Turkey, China and S. Korea. Agricultural insurance agencies in the world concentrated on difficult to manage risks such as frost, hail, fire, flood, etc. Developed countries have special funds for catastrophic risks as drought. Deficiencies of management on disease and pests, which is are among controllable risks to some extent, cause a reduction in producer incomes and product losses. It would be Exclusion of these type of risks from insurance programs and transferring them to the producers may help prevent adverse selection and moral hazard problems.In this study; agricultural insurance practices were reviewed in the light of experiences of various countries and some solutions were suggested to problems encountered in Turkish practice. To compare insurance practices between countries Turkish agricultural insurance system was analyzed within the framework of a conceptual framework. This conceptual framework helps to analyze insurance systems and comprises of basic structure, super structure and sustainability of agricultural insurance schemes. Another goal of this study is create awareness on importance and opportunities of risk management and agricultural insurance, both from the standpoint of farmers and insurance agencies.