Study On Plantation Risk And Agricultural Insurance In Jiangsu Province

Agriculture is a weak industry with low economical efficiency. Since China joined WTO, agriculture has been facing both nature and market dual risks. The agricultural insurance system not only acts as the important component in the agricultural safeguard system, but also has become one of the most important non-price agriculture protection tools internationally, which was accepted by WTO as one of the national supported "green box" policies. Executing the agricultural insurance in our country is an inevitable action incorporating into the international agriculture.We carried out our research on agricultural insurance in Jiangsu Province because Jiangsu Province was listed as one of the six agricultural insurance experimental provinces by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance, the Insurance Regulatory Commission in 2007. Agricultural insurance in Jiangsu has already formed Huai-An, Su-zhou and Wu-xi patterns. In the mean time the Jiangsu Min-Zong agricultural insurance company is under construction. The experiment of agricultural insurance in Jiangsu has accumulated a lot of experience. So summary of practical experience and theorectical research may have positive radiational effect on the national promotion of agricultural insurance.Based on the summary of domestic and foreign theoretical research on agricultural insurance, we studied Jiangsu agricultural insurance from farmers' angle in qualitative and quantitative, standard and empirical study approaches. This thesis consists of eight chapters. We list four main aspects of our research as follows.Research 1: The position of agricultural insurance in the sequence of demands from farmers in scattering plantation risksIn general, farmers choose from the following measures to avoid risks: planting variety of species, learning more about the price information of agricultural market, introducing new agricultural technologies; participating in agricultural insurance, participating in agricultural cooperative organizations or professional associations, seeking for help from government, and so on. Research results showed that farmers now tend to rely on their own to decrease agricultural risk. Affected by traditional habits, farmers usually depend little on external forces; even if farmers utilize external forces to avoid agricultural risk, they prefer the traditional way of government-fund help. Agricultural insurance lies in the back of all means of avoiding plantation risks.Research 2: Study on the types of agricultural insurance and the coverage levels in Jiangsu ProvinceThe types of agricultural insurance and the coverage levels have direct impact on farmers' demand for agricultural insurance. The types of agricultural insurance in Jiangsu are mainly rice and wheat. However, the degree of risk of these two species is not high, which are listed in the last and the last but two of all species. In addition, the coverage level is "more than 70 percent" decrease in production. Results showed that this coverage level has seldom been met in Jiangsu and this level is unattractive to farmers.Research 3: The impacting factors for farmers to choose agricultural insuranceThe impacting factors of farmers in choosing agricultural insurance include family features (family size, gender, farming years, education and local status), demanding factors (knowledge of the agricultural insurance, loaning history, attitude to the types of agricultural insurance and the level of coverage), intrinsic nature factors (loss due to natural disasters, the per capita arable area) and other incomes (proportion of wage of working out in total household income, proportion of farming in total household income). We use the multinomial logit model to analyse the impacting factors of farmers in choosing agricultural insurance.Empirical study shows that high level of education, high local status, and much knowledge of agricultural insurance, satisfaction of insurance types and coverage levels, much per capita area of arable land and large propotion of planting revenue in the total household income play an positive role in the demand for agricultural insurance.Research 4: Analysis of cooperation form in the agricultural insuranceRunning mode is an important part in agricultural insurance. We constructed a static framework of game theory to analyse cooperation form in the insurance. The choice among farmers, government and agricultural cooperatives (mutual clubs) leads to two Nash-balances. Results showed that farmers would be unwilling to join in the agricultural insurance cooperatives, insurance coporations would not give offer and the government would not support cooperative forms. That is, cooperatives operating system would not be possible. Finally, we gave the theorectial reasons why the cooperative system in the agricultural insurance would fail.