The Grassland Sheep Weather Index

Sheep weather index insurance is China's first index insurance product that focuses on grassland grazing animal husbandry farmers.It protects the feed cost caused by bad weather(drought,snow disaster)causing herders to change their production methods.Grassland sheep weather index insurance is a new type of index insurance product that adapts to the risk characteristics of grassland animal husbandry,and can effectively control moral hazard and adverse selection,simplify the process of damage assessment and reduce transaction costs.This product was implemented as a pilot project in 2019 in Xilinguo League,Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,as a project of "Insurance Bonus Subsidy for Local Advantages and Characteristic Agricultural Insurance Products" subsidized by the central government.In order to in-depth and quantitatively study the implementation effect of the grassland sheep weather index insurance policy and further improve the grassland weather index insurance system,this paper is based on field survey data of more than500 herdsmen in 11 banners,counties,and districts of Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia.On the basis of the current implementation of the sheep weather index,rigorous empirical analysis methods are used to identify herders' willingness to purchase grassland sheep weather index insurance and its influencing factors,and analyze whether the insurance system helps improve herders' ability to obtain credit and encourage them expand the scale of breeding scale and test whether the product has the effect of promoting the income of herdsmen.In the context of the early stage of the development of sheep weather index insurance,the grassland animal husbandry industry urgently need a powerful tool for dispersing the production and operation risks,the answer to the above questions has crucial theoretical and practical significance.Therefore,based on the household survey data from the Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,this article elaborated on the current development status and existing problems of sheep weather index insurance,and this article identified the factors affecting sheep weather index insurance's purchasing behavior of herdsmen and then tested the effect of sheep whether index insurance on the production behavior of herders,and the final research on the impact of sheep weather index insurance on herders' income and the distribution of herders' income!under different income conditions,the specific research content and conclusions are as follows:First,implementation status and main problems of weather index for mutton sheep on grassland in Inner Mongolia.Based on the field interview data and the survey data of nearly 500 herdsmen,this paper finds: The weather index insurance has been implemented in Xilin Gol City for two years,and all counties and districts have launched weather index insurance,and herdsmen have a certain degree of awareness and satisfaction with this insurance product.However,during the implementation process,there have also been problems such as unscientific setting of product contracts(such as index selection,threshold determination,etc.),imperfect operating mechanism,and inadequate claim amount.Second,identify the factors influencing the purchasing behavior of sheep weather index insurance.After the pilot program,sheep weather index insurance's insurance participation rate is more evident in different regions.Among them,the participation rate of Abaga Banner is the highest,at 84.3%,and the lowest in the Ulagai Management District,where the participation rate is only 1.8%.Identifying factors influencing the purchase behavior of herdsmen in the early development of weather index insurance will help the further promotion and implementation of this insurance policy.According to the Double-hurdle model results,pasture area,insurance awareness,publicity,whether neighbors buy or not,and disaster risk evaluation significantly impact herdsmen's purchasing propensity.Insurance awareness,pure husbandry income and regions significantly affect the number of insured herdsmen's choices.Based on the empirical results,this article recommends:First,increase the publicity of sheep weather index insurance,focus on herders with more land resource endowments,and increase the enthusiasm of such herdsmen to participate in insurance;secondly,innovate sheep weather on the existing basis.The index insurance promotion method should highlight the policy effects and the critical impact of neighborhood purchases;furthermore,based on the increasing awareness of herders' insurance,the occurrence of basis risks needs to be weakened.The investment in infrastructure will reduce the low participation rate of herdsmen caused by basis risk.Third,This part of the content focuses on herders' production behavior in the herdsmen's breeding scale and credit scale.According to theoretical analysis,in order to maximize returns,rational investors will expand their mutton sheep breeding scale after they are protected by the weather index insurance.However,according to the endogenous switching model and the average treatment effect results show that the sheep weather Index insurance has no significant impact on herders' breeding scale.The possible explanation is that at present,sheep breeding in China's grassland animal husbandry is largely affected by factors such as the market,land resource endowments and policies.As a risk management tool,sheep weather index insurance is still difficult to have a significant impact on the herders' sheep breeding volume to a certain extent;whether sheep weather index insurance will play a role on both the credit supply and demand sides,thereby affecting the herder's credit scale,it needs to be tested from both theoretical and empirical aspects.On the basis of systematically combing the mechanism of weather index insurance on herders' credit availability and optimal loan amount,this paper uses Tobit model and CLAD method to empirically test the effects of mutton weather index insurance on herders based on the survey data of 257 herders.The results show that the mutton weather index insurance significantly affects the loan amount of herdsmen.Forth,The characteristics of sheep weather index insurance determine the different paths of influence on the income of herders.Under the premise of fully recognizing the direct effect of agricultural insurance on farmers' income security,this article focuses on the indirect influence of sheep weather index insurance on the promotion of herder's income.Mechanism analysis found that the cost-income path has become the main path most likely to affect the income of herdsmen.The empirical test results of OLS regression and PSM method show that the sheep weather index insurance has a significant positive effect on the income of herdsmen.In order to further deepen the research conclusions,this article continues to examine the impact of sheep weather index insurance on the income of herdsmen under different income conditions.The results of quantile regression show that sheep weather index insurance significantly affects the income of high-income herdsmen,and has a insignificant impact on other income levels.The main innovations of this paper are as follows: First,the research object is new.The sheep weather index insurance is China's first weather index insurance product for grassland animal husbandry.This paper is the first domestic economic study for the grassland animal husbandry weather index insurance system;Second,the research content is new.Based on relevant theories and the characteristics of pastoral areas and herders,this article accurately identifies the factors that affect!herders' sheep weather index insurance purchasing behavior,and systematically and quantitatively studies the implementation effects of sheep weather index insurance,and this paper provides the robust and convincing research results for evaluating the effectiveness of weather index;third,the research conclusion is new.This paper conducts research on the overall income of herdsmen and herders of different income levels on the income effect of sheep weather index insurance for herders and the conclusion is more innovative than the previous ones.The main research significance of this article lies in: on the one hand,this article enriches the content of the domestic weather index insurance research field,on the other hand,the research conclusions of this article provide important theoretical references for the necessity and sustainability of the implementation of this policy in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.