How to compensate for agricultural losses in the face of flood disasters according to law

At about 06:15 on July 12, Liao Luguang had just got off work when his mobile phone rang. It was the eighth call he received that day to report crop damage caused by the flood. After hanging up the phone, Liao Luguang and the staff of the insurance company drove half an hour to the disaster report site, Zuojiashan Village, Shuangjiangkou Town, Ningxiang County, Hunan Province, to investigate the disaster situation on the spot.

Liao Luguang is the head of the Insurance Section of the Ningxiang County Agricultural Bureau. Since the severe flood in early July, he and the staff of the local insurance company have been busy every day in various townships and village groups. As a major grain-producing county in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, Ningxiang is the most severely damaged district and county in the city in this flood, with an area of 200000 mu affected by rice.

The severe flood has caused huge losses to agricultural production. In Hunan, the "land of fish and rice", not only the "rice bag" was badly flooded, the "vegetable basket" was seriously damaged, but also there were a lot of losses in farming, animal husbandry, and aquatic products, and many of the crops suffered "extinction."

Is there a "man-made disaster" in addition to natural disasters? In Jinghuapu Village, Jinghuapu Township, at the junction of Ningxiang County and Heshan District, before the rainstorm, a mineral waste oil collection enterprise built close to farmland and fish ponds did not evacuate the oil barrel in time, and the rainstorm washed out the oil barrel, which caused more than 1100 mu of rice fields and fish ponds to be polluted to varying degrees.

In the face of agricultural losses directly caused by floods, in addition to disaster relief at the government level, how does commercial insurance act? How to define the legal liability for the double losses caused by flood and pollution? How should I compensate for the loss? With these problems, the reporter specially rushed to the front line of disaster relief claims settlement in Hunan for a visit.

Settlement of claims for bulk crops: expect to raise the standard of compensation for damaged grain and other crops

Hunan's rice output has ranked first in the country for many years in a row, and the flood has caused extremely serious losses to rice. According to statistics from the Hunan Provincial Department of Finance on July 15, the amount of rice losses reported in the province reached 175 million yuan, accounting for 73.5 percent of the province's agricultural insurance losses due to disasters.

On July 3, the Ningxiang County Bureau of Agriculture organized and set up a rapid handling team for flood claims cases to deploy disaster investigation forces. According to the disaster situation, from July 4, the relevant responsible persons of the Ningxiang County Agricultural Bureau and the person in charge of agricultural insurance of the insurance company led a team to form 13 survey teams to investigate the dangerous situation in 29 townships and guide farmers to help themselves in disaster production.

Shuangjiangkou town is low-lying, the disaster situation is more serious. According to ou Youming, deputy director of the town's agricultural office, as of July 12, there are still more than 1100 mu of rice that are still immersed in water and whose tips are not exposed; more than 6000 mu of rice are moldy after being submerged for more than three days; some late-harvested early rice is in the filling stage, and more than 2000 mu of rice pulp has stinked; and 20, 000 mu of late-maturing varieties are in flowering stage, and rice flowers are irrigated by heavy rain and cannot be fertilized.

"We are a major agricultural town and the main producing area of double-cropping rice, surrounded by water on three sides, of which 3.5 kilometers of rice fields are along the river bank. In the past ten years and nine disasters, the villagers have always had a strong awareness of insurance. In addition, farmers only need to pay 20% of the premium, and the other 80% is borne by finance, so all 3186 mu of early rice in the village have been insured. " Sun Zhengbiao, an accountant in Zuojiashan Village, Shuangjiangkou Town, said that 15 of the 19 groups in the village were affected by the rainstorm, of which nearly 700 mu of rice was harvested.

Sun Zhengbiao snapped his finger and calculated: "at present, the highest compensation for rice is 360 yuan per mu, which is just the materialization cost." According to the minimum yield of 750jin / mu, compared with the purchase price of 135yuan / 100jin for early rice this year, the loss per mu will at least reach more than 1100 yuan. "

"it is hoped that for staple crops such as rice, the standard of compensation can be raised so that the planting income of our farmers can be more guaranteed in the disaster year." Sun Zhengbiao said.

Characteristic crop insurance: looking forward to expanding the pilot areas of vegetable insurance

Compared with staple crops such as rice, the disaster of characteristic crops such as vegetables can not be ignored. Hanshou County, a major vegetable production county in Hunan, has affected nearly 84000 mu of vegetables this year, of which 23000 mu has been affected, with a total harvest of 20.45 million mu. The direct economic loss of vegetables caused by torrential rain in the county has reached 71.66 million yuan.

Fortunately, vegetables in Hanshou County, as a characteristic agriculture, were included in the insurance category for the first time this year. In accordance with the notice on matters related to carrying out the pilot work of characteristic Agricultural Insurance issued by the Hunan Provincial Department of Finance in 2014, each county (city) may declare the characteristic agricultural insurance based on itself, and after approving the pilot project, the Hunan Provincial Department of Finance shall determine the reward and subsidy standard according to the insurance plan and the implementation of the pilot project.

"compared with rice, vegetable insurance not only has a higher premium, farmers have to bear half of the premium, that is, 50 yuan per mu, and vegetable claims procedures are relatively complicated. As vegetables can grow more than one mu of land, and different varieties have different prices, it is difficult to unify the standard of compensation for the time being. " Xiong Guoliang, director of the Agricultural Insurance Station of the Agriculture Bureau of Hanshou County, said that this year, 80, 000 mu of vegetables in the county have been put into special agricultural insurance, of which 13000 mu can be settled this time.

"if you can compensate a little, the loss will be less. Fortunately, all the 2000 mu of vegetables I planted are insured. " Nie Xilong, head of the vegetable professional cooperative of Chengmeng League in Hanshou County, has more than 300 mu of pumpkin affected this time. According to the current compensation standard, the loss of 150000 yuan can be recovered.

But Ningxiang County Jiangguo Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., which is also engaged in vegetable cultivation, is not so lucky. Li Qinghe, head of the company, told reporters that in the rainstorm, the company had more than 300 mu of chili peppers and more than 600 mu of ginger affected, resulting in direct economic losses of more than 7 million yuan, but could not get any compensation.

"it's not that I don't want to take out insurance." Li Qinghe admitted that vegetables are a high-input and high-risk industry. starting from growing vegetables on a large scale in 2014, he went to the county agriculture bureau three times to consult about buying insurance for vegetables, but was told that he could not buy them.

Liao Luguang also expressed helplessness: "Ningxiang is one of the important 'vegetable baskets' in the urban area of Changsha. We have investigated that more than 90% of the major vegetable growers in the county have a strong willingness to buy insurance. We have been making an upward declaration, but the special vegetable insurance declared by the Ningxiang County Finance Bureau has not been approved by the Provincial Department of Finance, so the settlement of the claim must not be moved. "

"the shareholders of our company are all farmers, and we can't afford to lose as much as this year on our own." Li Qinghe hopes that the industry he is engaged in is supported by insurance and is no longer completely dependent on heaven for a living.

Suspected man-made accidents: hope to compensate farmers for losses in accordance with the law

For the villagers of Jinghuapu Village, Jinghuapu Township, Ningxiang County, the house was rained all night. During the rainstorm on July 4, due to the wall of a mineral waste oil collection enterprise in Heshan District, Yiyang City, was washed down, more than 100 oil barrels accumulated in the outer wall of the factory building gushed out from the waste oil collection station, floated in the water, and many oil barrels leaked. Nearly 1000 mu of rice fields and more than 100 mu of water in three villages have been polluted by oil pollution.

The double disasters of rainstorm and oil pollution have brought inestimable losses to many large farmers. Some of the warped-mouthed fish in the whole fish pond of the villager Hu Haiqing's family were washed away, and some were polluted to death, resulting in an economic loss of more than 400,000 yuan.

How to compensate for the losses caused by the double disaster? The local government said the flood was the main cause, and mismanagement was the secondary cause, and will order the companies involved to pay compensation according to the third-party EIA report.

The third-party EIA report was not made public as scheduled. Villagers have reported the oil pollution incident to the Hunan Provincial Environmental Protection Department, which has accepted complaints because the incident is across municipal and state administrative regions, and one of the legal bases for accepting is Article 57, paragraph 1, of the Environmental Protection Law. This provision stipulates that citizens, legal persons and other organizations shall have the right to report to the competent department of environmental protection or other departments responsible for the supervision and administration of environmental protection if they find that any unit or individual has committed acts of polluting the environment or destroying the ecology.

The reporter consulted a lawyer on this matter, and Deng Sheng, a lawyer at Guangdong Junyan (Changsha) Law firm, said: "according to the provisions of China's Tort liability Law, if damage is caused by environmental pollution, the polluter should bear tort liability. The polluter may choose to restore the original state and compensate for the loss. "

He Jianjun, president of the Hunan Environmental Protection Federation, believes that it is impossible for this kind of pollution to return to its original state in a short period of time, because even if the surface pollution is treated, pond silt and paddy fields may also be contaminated and it is difficult to deal with them thoroughly. Therefore, compensation for losses should take into account both direct and indirect losses.

The environmental protection expert also pointed out that in addition to ordering compensation, it should also be held responsible: is it legal to build pollution-related enterprises near rice fields and ponds? If it is illegal, who approves that pollution-related enterprises can be built at zero distance on the edge of rice fields and ponds? Knowing or should have known that under the premise of the rainstorm, why the enterprises involved did not properly seal or transfer the oil barrels? If we do not pay close attention to management, such problems will continue to occur.

Hu Haiqing and other farmers said that they hope that the governments of the two places and the enterprises involved will not only take a positive attitude, but also take actions and pay compensation in accordance with the law, so that farmers can reduce their losses and resume agricultural production as soon as possible.