German agency to aid DA's crop insurance program

MANILA, Philippines - The agriculture department has inked an agreement with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) to implement a P70-million project which will help develop the country’s rice information management system and provide insurance products for farmers.

Antonis Malagardis, program manager of the Micro-insurance Innovations Program for Social Security at the GIZ, said at the recent signing of the agreement that the program which would be funded by the German agency would involve developing rice information systems through the use of radar-based remote sensing technology to gather data from the fields such as yields from harvest areas.

The information, he said, would be used to come up with insurance products for the rice farmers.

Jimmy Loro, senior adviser for the Remote Sensing-Based Information and Insurance for Crops in Emerging Economies, said in the same event that currently, data on yields from harvest areas are gathered manually while the pilot-testing of the radar-based remote sensing technology to gather data from the fields is being undertaken in the province of Leyte.

He noted that the pilot-testing, which started last year, covered some 129 farmers in Leyte.

The target, he said, is to cover 500 farmers in that province.

While the pilot-testing of radar-based remote sensing technology to gather data from the fields is being undertaken, a micro-insurance program is also being implemented in Leyte.

Under the program, farmers may receive insurance coverage if they fail to meet the projected harvest.

Loro said that each farmer could receive a maximum insurance coverage worth P10,000 per hectare if they fail to meet 80 percent of the historical production average of 79.3 cavans per hectare.

He also said there are plans to expand the coverage of the program.

“By 2014, we will be shifting to remote-sensing technology and we will also be covering Nueva Ecija and Caraga,” he added.