How to go further in the "vegetable Insurance" in underdeveloped areas

"Baby vegetables can be sold for more than 1000 yuan per mu at the end of July, rising to 4,000 or 5,000 yuan per mu in August, but in September, the number of baby vegetables per mu has dropped to 600 yuan." Last year, vegetable prices in Xiasanba Village, Dongzhai Town, Yongchang County, Gansu Province, made vegetable farmer Jack Ma feel heartache in retrospect: his 120mu baby vegetables eventually lost 160000 yuan.

How can vegetable farmers with "high yields but poor harvests" enhance their ability to resist market risks?

After the Spring Festival in 2015, Yongchang County officially launched a pilot project of vegetable price insurance; in July of the same year, this insurance began to underwrite orders. Jack Ma was one of the earliest beneficiaries. "thanks to the vegetable price insurance carried out by the county before, I got 92000 compensation afterwards, reducing the loss to a minimum."

Due to the production characteristics of vegetables and the changeable market and other factors, it is difficult to implement vegetable price insurance. How does Yongchang County do it? The reporter paid an in-depth visit to the area a few days ago.

Advantageous industries play "roller coaster" farmers have a strong demand for insurance products

"in the summer of 2014, there was a situation in Yongchang County that no one asked for 5 cents a jin after the bamboo shoots matured and finally rotted in the field." In this regard, Song Jinglin, who served as deputy county magistrate from the property Insurance Supervision Office of the Beijing Regulatory Administration of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission to Yongchang County, told reporters that Yongchang is located in the main grain-producing area of the Hexi Corridor, and vegetable cultivation is a local traditional advantage industry. the repeated occurrence of vegetables "difficult to buy and sell" has not only caused huge losses to vegetable farmers, but also become a prominent problem restricting local farmers to shake off poverty and become rich. After in-depth investigation, he found that the agricultural insurance coverage in Yongchang County is low, and vegetable farmers urgently need appropriate insurance products to help them prevent and resolve market risks and minimize losses.

In July 2015, Yongchang vegetable price insurance officially passed the relevant examination and approval and began to underwrite orders.

Zhao Mingzu, director of the Finance Office of Yongchang County Government, told reporters that Yongchang County has made innovations in the implementation of vegetable price insurance, covering both the natural risk of vegetable planting and the price risk of harvest and sale. The former shall be paid by the insurance company according to the degree of damage and the agreed proportion of compensation for different planting periods, while the latter shall be paid according to the part of the decline in the average off-ground price of local vegetables lower than the agreed insurance price during the insurance period of 15 days of harvest and listing, and the compensation when the natural risk occurs shall be deducted at the time of compensation. "the insured amount of vegetables per mu does not exceed 2000 yuan, which can basically cover the physicochemical cost of vegetable cultivation and part of the reasonable expected income. The maximum premium for vegetables per mu is no more than 200 yuan, and the premium rate is no more than 10%, of which 50% is subsidized at the provincial level, 20% at the municipal level and 10% at the county level. Farmers only need to bear 20% of the premium, no more than 40 yuan. "

"our vegetable price insurance mainly covers green bamboo shoots and baby vegetables with a large planting area in Yongchang, which cover 1900 yuan and 2000 yuan respectively." Zhang Dezhi, manager of Yongchang County Branch of China people's property Insurance Co., Ltd., said that last year, the company insured a total of 1557 mu of bamboo shoots and baby vegetables planted and harvested in Yongchang in autumn, achieving a premium income of 306800 yuan, providing more than 3 million yuan of risk protection for local vegetable farmers.

Chai Jun, a vegetable farmer in Liuba Township, is one of the first beneficiaries of vegetable price insurance pilot work in Yongchang County. In 2014, Chai Jun lost 400000 yuan in growing vegetables. "in the summer of 2015, as soon as I heard about vegetable price insurance, I immediately insured 150mu of baby vegetables and paid a premium of 6000 yuan." Chai Jun said that after the baby vegetables matured, the early price was good, but the later price fell, which cost him 200000 yuan. Fortunately, the vegetable price insurance claimed 120000 yuan. "this is much better than in 2014. It has basically recovered the planting cost, and the pressure has been greatly reduced."

It is difficult to promote vegetable insurance in underdeveloped areas.

Vegetable price insurance is nothing new, but in Gansu Province, which is located in the western underdeveloped region, Yongchang, as the first province to "eat crabs", is restricted by objective factors such as economic level and financial funds. the implementation of vegetable price insurance is faced with many difficulties.

Difficulties such as incomplete historical data, insufficient number of personnel and lack of experience in underwriting claims have directly increased the operational difficulties of insurance companies. In addition, the early insurance product design process also needs to rely on some reasonable assumptions and speculative support, making the final business results difficult to predict.

In contrast, whether the insurance company is able to bear the loss of vegetable price insurance claims has become the key to the sustainable operation of this insurance. In September last year, Yongchang County successively encountered waterlogging disasters caused by torrential rains and frost disasters throughout the county, resulting in a reduction in the production of some baby vegetables and the loss of bamboo shoots in a large area. At the end of October, the company paid the losses of the two disasters to farmers; in October, under the influence of factors such as the centralized listing of vegetables in the markets in the surrounding areas, the price of Yongchang doll vegetables remained low, and the average off-land price was lower than the agreed insurance price, and the company settled the claim again. Based on the situation last year, the simple compensation rate reached 280%.

"this is a big challenge for insurance companies!" Song Jinglin said that for innovative agricultural insurance products, insurance companies should not focus on temporary gains and losses, but on overall effects and long-term social effects, and need to make overall planning for three to five years or more.

Only by stabilizing operating income and "escorting" vegetable farmers can there be sustainability.

Zhang Dezhi believes that in order to ensure the sustainable operation of vegetable price insurance, it is necessary to fully follow the "law of large numbers," further expand the covered area and increase the variety of covered vegetables, so as to balance insurance premiums, loss compensation and other expenses and expenses. stabilize the business. In order to do this, the government needs to continue to invest financial funds to subsidize premiums, to help insurance companies collect basic data, and to speed up the training of a professional agricultural insurance business team by insurance companies themselves. and further improve the insurance products to achieve more controllable risks. At the same time, there is also a need for multi-party cooperation to promote the continuous improvement of people's insurance awareness.

Zhao Mingzu believes that for underdeveloped areas, how to reduce the subsidy burden of financial funds on specific agricultural insurance products under the condition that the insurance premiums borne by ordinary people remain unchanged in the future, and how to use the saved funds to expand the underwriting area or increase the underwriting varieties, it needs to be further discussed and improved.

Agricultural insurance belongs to the national policy of benefiting farmers, which is inseparable from the support of government financial funds, but at present, there is no central financial subsidy for the price insurance work carried out throughout the country, which basically depends on the capital input of provincial, municipal and county governments. Song Jinglin believes that Gansu is an economically underdeveloped province, and the financial funds of governments at all levels, especially county financial resources, are very tight. The single-core drive model driven by increasing financial subsidies, which has long been relied on in the development of agricultural insurance, is showing a trend of decreasing marginal utility. The multi-core drive model, supported by the continuous release of policy dividends, the enhancement of farmers' awareness of insurance and the improvement of the enthusiasm of operators, has begun to achieve initial results. In order to promote the sustained and stable operation of vegetable price insurance, Yongchang needs to make further efforts to create a good external environment, actively seek safeguard measures to optimize the scheme, and build a long-term mechanism to support financial innovation. to explore new ideas for the development of agricultural insurance in the western region.