M.K.Khushu
The State of Jammu and Kashmir is situated in North West Himalayan region extending over 320-17/, and 36 0-58 / north latitude and 73 0-26/ and 800 -30/ east longitude. The state has three regions with 22 districts. The Jammu region comprises of plains, mountains and foot hill of Siwaliks whereas, Kashmir valley is covered by forested mountains, lakes, waterways and terraced fields. Ladakh accounts for nearly 2/3 rd of the state’s area (22.2 million hectares) and is high altitude cold deserted region. Climatic conditions of these regions are different due to many reasons however, altitude play a great role. As we proceed from south to north, the elevation increases from 300 meter (Jammu ) to about 3500 meter in trans-Himalayan region (Ladakh). With increase in elevation the rainfall decreases from approximately 1100 mm in Jammu to 660 mm in Srinagar and only 92 mm in Leh with mean annual temperature 24.50 in Jammu, 13.30 C in Srinagar and only 5.30 C in Leh. Due to varying agroclimatic conditions the length of the crop growing season also decreases as we proceed from south to north.
Jammu and Kashmir being agrarian state, agriculture occupies an important place in the economy as nearly 70 % of the population in the state derives its livelihood directly or indirectly from the agriculture sector. Despite holding a crucial place in the economy of J&K state and regardless of its importance to growth, income, food and nutritional security, the agriculture sector is witnessing a gradual slump in its contribution to the Gross State Domestic Product due to low productivity, low seed replacement rate, yield stagnation, lack of irrigation facility as 58 percent of the net area sown is rained and small size of holdings. These small holders farmers are faced with high yield variability due to weather related perils such as drought, floods, hail storm and snow. Their plight is made worse by their inability to purchase high yielding, disease pest resistant seed varieties and other required inputs such as fertilizer. Flow of credit to agriculture sector has also remained disappointing, as the financial institutions have always been reluctant towards this sector as compared to the industrial and services sectors because they need to pledge their assets as collateral to bank or finance institutions which they do not have.
In the recent past, life of these farmers in the state has become more risky due to climatic variability. Although the Agrometeorology services lunched in the states provide advisories to farmer through electronic and print media to solve local field problem but to protect from extreme weather is beyond their control. Providing safety nets to protect these farmers from extreme weather is need of today especially in the state where economic development follows only on sound heels of agriculture. This can be made by implementing the Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) in the state. This scheme was announced in the Union Budget 2007-08 with the objective to mitigate the hardship of insured farmers against the likelihood of financial loss on account of anticipated crop loss resulting from incidence of adverse conditions of weather parameters like rainfall, temperature, frost, humidity etc. Actually, the National Insurance Scheme for crops was implemented from rabi 1999-2000 season in various states. Under the scheme and until rabi 2007-08, an area of 184 million hectares of about 1,155 lakh farmers were covered and a sum of Rs. 1, 21,606 crore insured. Besides the Agricultural Insurance Company of India Limited (AIC), other insurers like ICICI-LOMBARD General Insurance Company and IFFCO-TOKIO General Insurance Company (ITGI) have been included for implementation of the scheme in selected areas.
The WBCIS is a unique crop insurance scheme which operates on the concept of Area Approach in which ‘Reference Unit Area’ (RUA) shall be deemed to be homogeneous unit of insurance. Traditional crop insurance specifically indemnifies the cultivator against the shortfall in crop yield. Weather index crop insurance is based on the fact that the weather conditions affect crop production even when cultivator has taken all the care to ensure good harvest. Weather based crop insurance uses weather parameters as proxy for crop yields in compensating the famers for deemed crop losses. However, there are technical challenges in designing weather indices and correlating these indices with crop losses and needs historical data of at least 25 years. Contrary to this, the traditional crop insurance is easy to design needs historical yield data upto 10 years. Although the “basis risk’ in case of WBCIS could be high for rainfall and moderate for other meteorological conditions like frost, temperature ,humidity ,etc but the scheme is very transparent for assessment claim settlement. Before commencement of season, the RUA shall be notified by the State Government and all the insured farmers of particular crop in that area will be deemed to be at par in assessment claims. Each RUA is connected to Reference Weather Station (RWS) which could provide information if there is any sort of deviation in Actual Weather Parameter experience in RUA that leads to crop losses. To assess crop losses on the basis of weather indices is highly technical needs man power with expertise in the field of Agrometeorology.
As far as the implementation of WBCIS in a State like Jammu & Kashmir is concerned, it is highly challengeable because the entire region is dominated by hills and mountains which give rise to host different microclimates within each macro climatic zone or even within each district. It would be difficult for State Government to notify the RAU because the relief and aspect of slope are import factors to decide the microclimate condition of the representing area. The only option for Government, to overcome this problem, is to increase such RAU’s linked to Reference Weather Station (RWS). Effective weather insurance can be implemented in state only if there would be sufficient number of weather station network. In WBCIS, crops within 5 km radius from weather station is considered ideal to be insured with reasonable reduction in basis risk, and anything beyond 5 km tend to increase basis risk. However this consideration may not be true to entire area of the state. Weather index insurance does not measure changes in yields but it measures changes in critical weather parameters that may be responsible for adverse affect on crop yield. This is the reason that private weather data providers have entered the market to provide the weather data to the insurance companies on payment basis. In WBCIS scheme it is important to establish the relationship between yield and weather parameter especially rainfall which is considered to be one of the most important factors that determines the yield of crop of the region. In establishing this relationship it is critical to consider the weather parameters required for optimal growth at different stages during crop period. Once a strong relationship with weather parameters is identified which would become deciding factor for fix premium rate. The claims would be processed on the basis any deviation of weather that occurs during crop season without considering the physical condition of crop in farmers field. For example, to do measurement of rainfall on each farmers field is impossible, the weather index insurance measures the amount of rainfall at local meteorological station (RWS) assuming that the rainfall received at station is similar to the rainfall received on the farmer’s plot.
It is pertinent to mention here that to establish relationship between crop yield and weather parameter for purpose to fix the premium and compensation to famers, we require historical meteorological data and the state is lagging behind in this regard as there were few meteorological observatories in the state established by India Meteorological Department and other agencies which is not sufficient to use historical data to establish the relationship at micro level area or RAU notified by Government. However, there are sources and software available which can be used to estimate or generate local climatic parameters till good network observatories are established. Although, Government of India had taken number of initiatives to have Automatic Weather Station at district level through various agencies like India Meteorological Department, Indian council of Agriculture Research and Indian Space Research Organization but still it would not suffice our requirement to use the information for assessment the crop losses at such micro level.
Finally, it is not out of place to mention here that State Government must take initiative to have small Automatic Weather Station at block levels through Agriculture Department which would be helpful not only for assessing the losses but can be used as an aid to crop management by field functionaries of Agriculture Department.
(The author is Chief Scientist Agrometerology, SKUAST-J.
e.maildr_khushu@yahoo.co.in)
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