The agricultural insurance coverage system establishes that drought protection is restricted to rainfed productions Barely 3.3 million hectares are protected by agricultural insurance coverage in opposition to drought Drought, along with warmth strokes and non-emergence, was accountable for 4 out of ten agricultural accidents registered final yr
Just over 16.8 million hectares, a 3rd of the floor of Spain, made up the arable land in our nation final yr. Of all of them, solely 3.3 million have agricultural insurance coverage protection in opposition to drought, in keeping with information supplied by Agroseguro. In different phrases, the arable space that is protected against the consequences of this climatic state of affairs doesn’t even attain 20% of the overall.
The lack of water, which has already prevented the expansion of a very good a part of the rainfed productions and which threatens to considerably limit irrigation in irrigated crops, has turn out to be an excellent menace to the agricultural sector.
“You must work to get insurance coverage for 100% of the Spanish countryside for catastrophic conditions like those we are going to face this yr. We want a instrument that’s actually efficient and reasonably priced for all producers. You must make an effort to realize this as a result of these conditions are going to happen increasingly more usually,” claims Pedro García, COAG’s state head of agricultural insurance coverage.
The information proves him proper. According to Agroseguro, the entity that brings collectively the 17 managers that market agricultural insurance coverage with similar situations, episodes of drought are more and more recurrent in our nation. At the flip of the century, they had been produced each seven or ten years (1995, 2005, 2012) and since then they’ve been repeated with a lot shorter durations (2017, 2019, 2022, 2023). Thus, of the final seven years, in 4 these issues of lack of rain have been registered.
What crops are protected?
Agricultural insurance coverage protects 2.7 million hectares of so-called arable crops from drought this season, principally winter cereals, legumes, rapeseed, sunflower. In complete, they characterize 1,743 million insured capital in 113,000 insurance policies.
Despite the truth that the insured space is identical as final yr, the capital has grown by nearly 13% because of the evaluation of insurance coverage costs carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture to regulate them to market actuality.
To these crops we should additionally add the extra half one million hectares equivalent to rainfed winery crops, fodder crops (comparable to corn and alfalfa), olive groves, almond bushes, hazelnuts and beets. These add as much as practically 1,000 million euros extra capital, primarily resulting from wine grapes, that are very worthwhile and have excessive insurance coverage charges.
How a lot will the drought compensation be this yr?
Although many of the farmers are already verifying how what has been planted will not be going forward, will probably be when the same old time to reap the productions arrives when the consultants will assess the injury and calculate the compensation. The earliest collections are made in Andalusia, Castilla La Mancha or Catalonia, and start on the finish of May.
Last yr, Agroseguro paid 117 million euros to producers insured for drought claims on 1.28 million hectares, of which 90 million corresponded to producers of herbaceous crops. According to the entity, the typical cost time period after the ultimate appraisal of an agricultural declare was 25 days.
Is drought the most typical injury to crops?
Unlike what has occurred this yr, in 2022 there have been occasional rains in March and April that served to considerably cushion the impression of the shortage of water on agriculture. Despite this, 4 out of ten registered agricultural accidents needed to do with drought, warmth strokes or non-emergence (non-germination of the plant). Almost 19% had been because of the results of hail and 11% to frost.
In addition, 2022 exceeded the report for compensation paid within the agricultural sector, with 769 million euros. Until then, the best determine had been paid coinciding with the extreme drought of 2012, through which 732 had been paid. Of these, 210 million euros corresponded to producers insured for drought claims. In 2017 there have been 190 million and in 2019 they amounted to 92 million.
And the irrigated producers?
The insurance coverage situations of the Spanish Agricultural Insurance system set up that drought protection is for rainfed crops. The strains of insurance coverage contracted by irrigated producers typically exclude injury attributable to drought.
So, the losses recorded resulting from irrigation restrictions that stop sowing or finishing up the crops can solely be compensated, estimates Andrés Góngora, head of the fruit and vegetable sector at COAG, with direct assist from the Administrations and with monetary help to face the money owed attributable to the prices of the marketing campaign.
“When in a yr like this it’s seen that a unprecedented finances needs to be put in, maybe the particular conditions of irrigation will start to be thought of,” laments Pedro García, who requires the creation of primary insurance coverage, “nearly obligatory, like that of vehicles ” for all productions. “What the Administration will find yourself providing will probably be loans and bonuses, and that isn’t what’s going to assist farmers.”
In this regard, Congress accredited final December the Common Agricultural Policy (PAC) administration invoice, which established that the Ministry of Agriculture will research incorporating a brand new line to cowl drought into the Combined Agricultural Insurance Plan on irrigated areas. This would serve to indemnify the losses produced by yield losses which can be attributable to a decrease threat for which the insured will not be accountable.
What does agricultural insurance coverage say about local weather change?
The information from Agroseguro replicate the rise within the accident price associated to climate phenomena in recent times; and never solely in terms of drought. From the entity, they level out how hail storms have gotten extra frequent (final yr there was a minimum of one on daily basis) and its results are felt in more and more massive areas.
But additionally frost (in April 2022 one destroyed nearly all of the fruit within the Ebro valley), injury, maritime storms or episodes such because the Filomena storm, which destroyed quite a few woody crops, are behind the rise in agricultural insurance coverage contracts which has been setting a report for insured capital for eight consecutive years.
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