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The Indian Crop Insurance Puzzle: A Discourse from Behavioral Science Perspective

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Abstract

Crop insurance is an important policy instrument to shield farmers from risks in farming and it is even more important in the present context, when the climate change led crop losses are on the rise. Unfortunately, only 28% of the gross cropped area in India is under insurance coverage despite of highly subsidized insurance package under the flagship program of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana . In this paper, we examine few behavioral insights which explain the low adoption of insurance product. We also discuss few behaviorally smart policies options to increase the adoption of crop insurance.

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Fig. 1

(Data source: https://pmfby.gov.in)

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Funding

The authors did not receive any financial grant for conducting this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Agricultural Economics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Aditya Korekallu Srinivasa, Muthuprasad Thiyaharajan & Girish K. Jha

  2. ICAR-National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Subash Surendran Padmaja

Authors
  1. Aditya Korekallu Srinivasa
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  2. Muthuprasad Thiyaharajan
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  3. Subash Surendran Padmaja
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  4. Girish K. Jha
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Correspondence to Girish K. Jha.

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Korekallu Srinivasa, A., Thiyaharajan, M., Surendran Padmaja, S. et al. The Indian Crop Insurance Puzzle: A Discourse from Behavioral Science Perspective. Natl. Acad. Sci. Lett. 44, 377–382 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40009-021-01055-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40009-021-01055-w

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