C S C V L E T R A I N I N G

the
AGRICULTURE INSURANCE BASED ON NEW EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Genesis
Agriculture plays a dominant
role in economies of both
developed and developing
countries.
Whether agriculture
represents a substantial
surplus and agriculture
sustainable country for an
economically strong country
or simply sustenance for a
hungry, overpopulated one, it
plays a significant role in
almost every nation.
The production of food crops
including all type of crop
production is important to Agriculture in India
everyone and producing food
crops in a cost-effective
There are about 10 million such farmers, for whom the issue is with
manner is the goal of every
farmer, large-scale farm land coverage of non- loanee farmers, under the National Agricultural
owners and regional Insurance Scheme and the Weather-based Insurance Scheme.
agricultural situations. The “Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme is intended to provide
A farmer needs to be efficient. insurance protection to the cultivator against adverse weather
incidence, such as deficit & excess rainfall, frost, heat (temperature),
Having knowledge and relative humidity, etc., which are deemed to adversely impact the crop
information on crop conditions during its cultivation period.
and farming operations will
Under the insurance coverage Scheme, two distinct provisions,
help the farmers to
understand the health of their season wise are provided as follows:
crops, extent of infestation or KHARIF Crop raised between June and
stress damage, or potential
SEASON September/October/November in respect of short,
yield and soil conditions.
medium and long duration crops, respectively.
This in turn will give information
on farm production, as yield RABI Crop raised between November and April.
(both quantity and quality) SEASON
estimates for all crop products,
which will help control price and
promote insurance companies
to offer insurance and credit
support in case of crop failures.
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Area Approach:
The Scheme is operated on the principle of “Area
Approach”, which signifies that a “Reference Unit Area”
(specific Reference Weather Stations, that provides
“Weather Data” for the purpose of assessment of
compensation), is considered as a Unit-Area of
Insurance for the purpose of acceptance
of risk and assessment of compensation as well

Adverse Weather Incidence:

Following are the weather perils, which are deemed to

cause “Adverse Weather Incidence”, leading to crop
loss, would be covered under the Scheme:

KHARIF Deficit Rainfall, Excess Rainfall, etc.

PERILS
RABI Un-seasonal Rains, Frost, Heat
PERILS (Temperature), Relative humidity, Wind,
Solar Radiation, etc.

Emerging Technologies Risk period is from “Sowing Period” to “Maturity” of the

Identifying and mapping crops help various
crop.
agencies to prepare an inventory of what Risk period, depending on the duration of the crop and
was grown in certain areas. the weather parameters chosen, could vary with
It also helps in crop condition assessment, individual crop and Reference Unit Area.
crop yield forecasting, grain supplies, Triggers are fixed keeping in mind the moisture/water
collecting crop production statistics,
requirement of a particular Crop to produce a Normal
facilitating crop rotation records, mapping
soil productivity, identification of factors Yield.
influencing crop stress, assessment of For Groundnut, the 4 key Crop-
crop damage due to storms and drought, stages identified are:
and monitoring farming activity at field (i) Sowing & Germination;
level. (ii) Vegetative phase;
The key activities include identifying the (iii) Flowering & Pegging; &
crop types and delineating their extent (iv) Pod formation
(often measured in acres). & Maturity.
Traditional methods of obtaining this Sum Insured for Deficit
information are census and ground Rainfall (i.e. the Maximum
surveying. Pay-out) are distributed over
In order to standardize measurements, the 4 key Crop-stages
particularly for international agencies and keeping in mind the relative
consortiums, satellite remote sensing can importance of each stage.
provide common data collection and
information extraction strategies.

2

Satellite remote sensing offers an efficient and
reliable means of collecting the information
required, in order to map crop type, acreage and
crop condition.
It provides both field level information and
synoptic view, which gives information about the
health of the vegetation.
The spectral reflection of a field will vary with
respect to changes in the phenology (growth),
stage type, and crop health, and thus can be
measured and monitored by multispectral
sensors.
The high-resolution satellite data increases the
information available for distinguishing each
target class and its respective signature.
Thus there is a better chance of performing a
more accurate classification. Interpretations from
remotely sensed data can be input to a
geographic information system (GIS) and crop
rotation systems.
This can be combined with ancillary data to
provide information of ownership, management
practices etc.
Crop identification and mapping benefit from
the use of multitemporal imagery to facilitate
classification by taking into account changes in
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AGRICULTURE INSRURANCE
reflectance as a function of plant phenology (stage
of growth) . This in turn requires seasonal high-
resolution satellite data for growing seasons.
For example, crops like canola (Sarsoon in Hindi)
may be easier to identify when they are flowering,
because of both the spectral reflectance change,
and the timing of the flowering.
Some times multisensor data may be valuable for
increasing classification accuracies by contributing
more information than a sole sensor could
provide, viz. information relating to plant structure
and moisture by microwave satellite sensor and
chlorophyll content and the canopy structure, by
multi spectral sensors.
The tropical agricultural crops have distinct
multispectral signatures. Monitoring stages of rice
growth is a key application in tropical areas,
particularly Asian countries.
These data are used to classify crop type over a
regional scale to conduct regional inventories,
assess vegetation condition, estimate potential
yield, and finally to predict similar statistics for
other areas and compare results, with the use
of high resolution optical, land use, and parcel
measurement.
With these methodologies it is possible to estimate
the crop yield and .assess insurance coverage, in
case of crop failure.
Satellite images are used as mapping tools to
classify crops, examine their health and viability,
and monitor farming practices.
Agricultural applications of satellite
remote sensing include the following:
a) crop type classification;
b) crop condition assessment;
c) crop yield estimation;
d) mapping of soil characteristics;
e) mapping of soil management practices;
f) compliance monitoring (farming practices)

Crop Monitoring & Damage Assessment
Assessment of the health of a crop, as well as
early detection of crop infestations, is critical in
ensuring good agricultural productivity.
Stress associated with, for example, moisture
deficiencies, insects, fungal and weed
infestations, must be detected early enough to
provide an opportunity for the farmer to mitigate.
Also, crops do not generally grow evenly across
the field and consequently crop yield can vary
greatly from one spot in the field to another.
These growth differences may be a result of soil
nutrient deficiencies or other forms of stress.
Remote sensing allows the farmer to identify
areas within a field which are experiencing
difficulties, the knowledge of which can facilitate
appropriate support system for farm productivity.
Satellite images and maps as well as statistical
and graphical data, indicate vegetation
conditions on a pixel by pixel basis and illustrate
the predominant vegetation condition.
A detailed, quantitative analysis with mean
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)
value on a regular basis for crop and pasture/
grassland and differences between stressed and
unstressed vegetation, providing an indication of
plant health. Mean NDVI data can be plotted,
viewed, compared, and analyzed with any other
year in the statistical archive.
Season wise, two to three satellite imageries
may have to be taken for the agricultural area, in
each State, if advised for crop condition
assessment for insurance estimation, in the
country.
The project will have great economic benefit in
terms of yield estimation, food security analysis,
agriculture planning, livelihood analysis and a
host of other spin off benefits, for the rural
economy, in addition to crop security.
AGRICULTURE INSRURANCE
CONCLUSION
The mail advantages of GIS are its
flexibility, speed, accuracy, cost
effectiveness and capability to handle large
volumes of spatial and non-spatial data. In
addition, GIS can integrate the satellite data
with attributes and has been developed as
an efficient modern tool in the domain of
map analysis and decision making.
GIS of late, has become a powerful tool to
provide ways to use maps to analyse and
understand how rainfall, crop conditions,
weather and geography affects insurance
applications including risk assessment,
target areas, crop loss, crop yield, spatial
locations and people affected. GIS can be
used to provide maps, demographic
analysis, area and people affected, extent of
damage, insurance estimation etc.
Insurance help alleviate the risk and fears
by providing affected farmers with monetary
support in the event of failure of crops.
Conventional crop or livestock insurance
relies on direct measurement of the loss or
damage suffered by the farmer. However,
field loss assessment is normally costly or
not feasible, particularly where there are a
large number of small-scale farmers or
where insurance assessment factors are
undeveloped. Geoinformatics poses as a
powerful tool for addressing this issue.
In view of the emerging technologies in
Agriculture, the Crop Condition Assessment
for estimation of insurance support to
affected farmers will give a fillip to the
development of agriculture in the country.