A project to reform agricultural insurance is under preparation, including making it mandatory for farmers to take out insurance and granting state subsidies for strategic sectors, the director general of the National Agricultural Mutual Fund (CNMA), Mr Cherif Benhabiles.
Speaking on Algerian Radio, Mr Benhabiles explained that this project was “fully ready and validated by the Ministry of Agriculture” and would be proposed to the Insurance Department at the Ministry of Finance.
This reform mainly aims to make climatic and health risks insurable by setting up mechanisms to support farmers. This involves first integrating risk prevention management by anticipating disasters, reported Algerie-Eco quoting Mr Benhabiles.
“These devices, which are included in the roadmap of the Ministry of Agriculture, will give an economic dimension to this sector, through lasting solutions,” he said.
Insurance will thus become, for the first time, a decisive element in securing the income of farmers, instead of appealing to the Public Treasury to compensate them after each natural or health disaster.
But to do this, the reform project proposes to make it compulsory for farmers to take out an insurance policy on the basis that any subsidy from the public authorities must be compulsorily insured: “The State intervenes to develop agricultural activities, the minimum thing is to secure these investments,” he said.
However, farmers can benefit from a grant for the purchasing agricultural insurance products for strategic crops.
He said that other insurance companies have no interest in covering agriculture because they do not consider the business as profitable given losses caused by natural disasters.
Source: MEIR
