Drone policy: Playgrounds in the sky

#News(AgriTech) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated on Saturday at the BJP’s national convention in New Delhi that his government is “working day and night to double farmers’ income by 2022”, when the country completes 75 years of its independence.

India has, indeed, taken many steps to reach this goal since the PM articulated this goal at a kisan rally in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, in February 2016. However, simply doubling farmers’ income in a good year will not end farmers’ distress. What farmers need is to be able to protect that income even in the ‘bad years’. One crucial component of protecting agricultural income is microinsurance.

From the 2016 kharif (autumn crop) season, the government replaced previous crop insurance schemes and introduced the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). But despite the best efforts, the gross arable land under this insurance cover has fallen, as compared to two years ago. Ask anyone why the scheme underperforms, and one seemingly simple problem lies at the centre – the time-consuming and unreliable crop cutting experiments (CCE).

To pay out yield-based insurance, a simple question must be answered – what was the yield for a particular farmer? Currently, a tremendously large exercise is carried out every season to answer that question. Crops from statistically selected farms are cut, threshed, winnowed, weighed, dried and then weighed again. Once an estimated 10 lakh such CCEs are carried out every season, the result is aggregated to predict yield in every region, and then, the insurers can begin the process of settling claims. Typically, payouts are delayed by up to a season, sometimes more. In the interim, the farmer has to take on an expensive loan to refinance the inputs needed for the next cycle. The insurance amount, if and when it arrives, is used to repay the principal. But the farmer will still have to bear a cutting loss on interest and lost income.

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