Mapping global research on agricultural insurance

With a global market of 30 billion USD, agricultural insurance plays a key role in risk finance and contributes to climate change adaptation by achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including no poverty, zero hunger , and climate action . The existing evidence in agricultural insurance is s...

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Main Authors: Shalika Vyas, Tobias Dalhaus, Martin Kropff, Pramod Aggarwal, Miranda P M Meuwissen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2021-01-01
Series:Environmental Research Letters
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac263d
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author Shalika Vyas
Tobias Dalhaus
Martin Kropff
Pramod Aggarwal
Miranda P M Meuwissen
author_facet Shalika Vyas
Tobias Dalhaus
Martin Kropff
Pramod Aggarwal
Miranda P M Meuwissen
author_sort Shalika Vyas
collection DOAJ
description With a global market of 30 billion USD, agricultural insurance plays a key role in risk finance and contributes to climate change adaptation by achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including no poverty, zero hunger , and climate action . The existing evidence in agricultural insurance is scattered across regions, topics and risks, and a structured synthesis is unavailable. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic review of 796 peer-reviewed papers on agricultural insurance published between 2000 and 2019. The goal of this review was twofold: (a) categorizing agricultural insurance literature by agricultural product insured, research theme, geographical study area, insurance type and hazards covered, and (b) mapping country-wise research intensity of these indicators vis-à-vis historical and projected risk and crisis events—extreme weather disasters, projected temperature increase under SSP5 (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) scenario and livestock epidemics. We find that insurance research is focused on high-income countries while crops are the dominating agricultural product insured (33% of the papers). Large producers in production systems like fruits and vegetables (South America), millets (Africa) and fisheries and aquaculture (South-east Asia) are not focused upon in the literature. Research on crop insurance is taking place where historical extreme weather disasters are frequent (correlation coefficient of 0.75), while we find a surprisingly low correlation between climate change induced temperature increases in the future and current research on crop insurance, even when sub-setting for papers on the research theme of climate change and insurance (−.04). There is also limited evidence on the role of insurance to scale adaptation and mitigation measures to de-risk farming. Further, we find that the study area of livestock insurance papers is weakly correlated to the occurrence of livestock epidemics in the past (−.06) and highly correlated to the historical drought frequency (.51). For insurance to play its relevant role in climate change adaptation as described in the SDGs, we recommend governments, insurance companies and researchers to better tune their interest to risk-prone areas and include novel developments in agriculture which will require major investments, and, hence, insurability, in the coming years.
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spelling doaj.art-57cb62f4d84a461d89a5f60786c0ab1e2023-08-09T15:06:27ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262021-01-01161010300310.1088/1748-9326/ac263dMapping global research on agricultural insuranceShalika Vyas0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9933-1269Tobias Dalhaus1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5853-0942Martin Kropff2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9598-9824Pramod Aggarwal3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1060-7602Miranda P M Meuwissen4https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6929-3743CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Borlaug Institute for South Asia, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (BISA-CIMMYT) , New Delhi, India; Business Economics, Wageningen University and Research , Wageningen, The NetherlandsBusiness Economics, Wageningen University and Research , Wageningen, The NetherlandsConsultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) , Montpellier, FranceCGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Borlaug Institute for South Asia, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (BISA-CIMMYT) , New Delhi, IndiaBusiness Economics, Wageningen University and Research , Wageningen, The NetherlandsWith a global market of 30 billion USD, agricultural insurance plays a key role in risk finance and contributes to climate change adaptation by achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including no poverty, zero hunger , and climate action . The existing evidence in agricultural insurance is scattered across regions, topics and risks, and a structured synthesis is unavailable. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic review of 796 peer-reviewed papers on agricultural insurance published between 2000 and 2019. The goal of this review was twofold: (a) categorizing agricultural insurance literature by agricultural product insured, research theme, geographical study area, insurance type and hazards covered, and (b) mapping country-wise research intensity of these indicators vis-à-vis historical and projected risk and crisis events—extreme weather disasters, projected temperature increase under SSP5 (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) scenario and livestock epidemics. We find that insurance research is focused on high-income countries while crops are the dominating agricultural product insured (33% of the papers). Large producers in production systems like fruits and vegetables (South America), millets (Africa) and fisheries and aquaculture (South-east Asia) are not focused upon in the literature. Research on crop insurance is taking place where historical extreme weather disasters are frequent (correlation coefficient of 0.75), while we find a surprisingly low correlation between climate change induced temperature increases in the future and current research on crop insurance, even when sub-setting for papers on the research theme of climate change and insurance (−.04). There is also limited evidence on the role of insurance to scale adaptation and mitigation measures to de-risk farming. Further, we find that the study area of livestock insurance papers is weakly correlated to the occurrence of livestock epidemics in the past (−.06) and highly correlated to the historical drought frequency (.51). For insurance to play its relevant role in climate change adaptation as described in the SDGs, we recommend governments, insurance companies and researchers to better tune their interest to risk-prone areas and include novel developments in agriculture which will require major investments, and, hence, insurability, in the coming years.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac263dagricultural insuranceclimate changesystematic reviewmappinglivestock epidemicsextreme weather disasters
spellingShingle Shalika Vyas
Tobias Dalhaus
Martin Kropff
Pramod Aggarwal
Miranda P M Meuwissen
Mapping global research on agricultural insurance
Environmental Research Letters
agricultural insurance
climate change
systematic review
mapping
livestock epidemics
extreme weather disasters
title Mapping global research on agricultural insurance
title_full Mapping global research on agricultural insurance
title_fullStr Mapping global research on agricultural insurance
title_full_unstemmed Mapping global research on agricultural insurance
title_short Mapping global research on agricultural insurance
title_sort mapping global research on agricultural insurance
topic agricultural insurance
climate change
systematic review
mapping
livestock epidemics
extreme weather disasters
url https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac263d
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AT mirandapmmeuwissen mappingglobalresearchonagriculturalinsurance