IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/dsmqz.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Weather-index drought insurance in Burkina-Faso: assessment of its potential interest to farmers

Author

Listed:
  • Dissemin, uploaded via
  • Berg, Alexis
  • Quirion, Philippe
  • Sultan, Benjamin

Abstract

By using a detailed agricultural and climate dataset over Burkina-Faso and simple assumptions regarding the form of an insurance contract, the authors investigate the potential economic efficiency for farmers of a weather-index insurance system in this country. To do so, the results of more than 3000 simulated contracts applied to 30 districts, 21 yr (1984–2004), and five crops (cotton, millet, sorghum, maize, and groundnut) are explored. It is found that such an insurance system, even based on a simple weather index like cumulative rainfall during the rainy season, can present a significant economic efficiency for some crops and districts. The determinants of the efficiency of such contracts are analyzed in terms of yield/index correlations and yield variability. As a consequence of these two main determinants, the farmer's gain from an insurance contract is higher in the driest part of the country. In the same way, maize and groundnuts are the most suitable to implement an insurance system since their respective yields show a large variance and a generally high correlation with the weather index. However, the implementation of a real weather-index insurance system in West Africa raises a number of key practical issues related to cultural, economic, and institutional aspects.

Suggested Citation

  • Dissemin, uploaded via & Berg, Alexis & Quirion, Philippe & Sultan, Benjamin, 2018. "Weather-index drought insurance in Burkina-Faso: assessment of its potential interest to farmers," OSF Preprints dsmqz, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:dsmqz
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/dsmqz
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5aaa41626185de000d545fcc/
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/dsmqz?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miguel Carriquiry & Daniel E. Osgood, 2008. "Index Insurance, Probabilistic Climate Forecasts, and Production," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 08-wp465, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    2. Wouterse, Fleur & Taylor, J. Edward, 2008. "Migration and Income Diversification:: Evidence from Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 625-640, April.
    3. Ingram, K. T. & Roncoli, M. C. & Kirshen, P. H., 2002. "Opportunities and constraints for farmers of west Africa to use seasonal precipitation forecasts with Burkina Faso as a case study," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 331-349, December.
    4. Elodie Blanc & Philippe Quirion & Eric Strobl, 2008. "The climatic determinants of cotton yields: Evidence from a plot in West Africa," Post-Print hal-00715567, HAL.
    5. Xavier Giné & Robert Townsend & James Vickery, 2007. "Statistical Analysis of Rainfall Insurance Payouts in Southern India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1248-1254.
    6. Christian Gollier, 2003. "To Insure or Not to Insure?: An Insurance Puzzle," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 28(1), pages 5-24, June.
    7. de Rouw, Anneke, 2004. "Improving yields and reducing risks in pearl millet farming in the African Sahel," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 73-93, July.
    8. Jerry R. Skees & Jason Hartell & Anne G. Murphy, 2007. "Using Index-Based Risk Transfer Products to Facilitate Micro Lending in Peru and Vietnam," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1255-1261.
    9. Takeshi Sakurai & Thomas Reardon, 1997. "Potential Demand for Drought Insurance in Burkina Faso and Its Determinants," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(4), pages 1193-1207.
    10. Olivier Mahul, 2001. "Optimal Insurance Against Climatic Experience," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(3), pages 593-604.
    11. World Bank, 2007. "World Development Indicators 2007," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 8150.
    12. Chavas, Jean-Paul & Holt, Matthew T, 1996. "Economic Behavior under Uncertainty: A Joint Analysis of Risk Preferences and Technology," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(2), pages 329-335, May.
    13. Skees, Jerry & Hazell, P. B. R. & Miranda, Mario, 1999. "New approaches to crop yield insurance in developing countries:," EPTD discussion papers 55, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. Barry J. Barnett & Olivier Mahul, 2007. "Weather Index Insurance for Agriculture and Rural Areas in Lower-Income Countries," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1241-1247.
    15. Olivier Mahul, 2001. "Optimal insurance against climatic experience," Post-Print hal-01952102, HAL.
    16. Vedenov, Dmitry V. & Barnett, Barry J., 2004. "Efficiency of Weather Derivatives as Primary Crop Insurance Instruments," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 29(3), pages 1-17, December.
    17. Calum G. Turvey, 2001. "Weather Derivatives for Specific Event Risks in Agriculture," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 23(2), pages 333-351.
    18. Sommarat Chantarat & Christopher B. Barrett & Andrew G. Mude & Calum G. Turvey, 2007. "Using Weather Index Insurance to Improve Drought Response for Famine Prevention," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1262-1268.
    19. Abdulai, Awudu & CroleRees, Anna, 2001. "Determinants of income diversification amongst rural households in Southern Mali," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 437-452, August.
    20. Rulon D. Pope & Richard E. Just, 1991. "On Testing the Structure of Risk Preferences in Agricultural Supply Analysis," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 73(3), pages 743-748.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexis Berg & Philippe Quirion & Benjamin Sultan, 2009. "Weather-index drought insurance in Burkina-Faso: assessment of its potential interest to farmers," Post-Print hal-00520893, HAL.
    2. Barnett, Barry J. & Barrett, Christopher B. & Skees, Jerry R., 2008. "Poverty Traps and Index-Based Risk Transfer Products," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1766-1785, October.
    3. Antoine Leblois & Philippe Quirion, 2013. "Agricultural insurances based on meteorological indices: realizations, methods and research challenges," Post-Print hal-00656778, HAL.
    4. Alan Fuchs & Hendrik Wolff, 2011. "Concept and Unintended Consequences of Weather Index Insurance: The Case of Mexico," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(2), pages 505-511.
    5. Million Tadesse & Bekele Shiferaw & Olaf Erenstein, 2015. "Weather index insurance for managing drought risk in smallholder agriculture: lessons and policy implications for sub-Saharan Africa," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, December.
    6. Mengmeng Qiang & Manhong Shen & Guanjun Xia, 2023. "The effectiveness of weather index insurance in managing mariculture production risk," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 67(2), pages 245-262, April.
    7. Juárez-Torres, Miriam & Sánchez-Aragón, Leonardo & Vedenov, Dmitry, 2017. "Weather Derivatives and Water Management in Developing Countries: An Application for an Irrigation District in Central Mexico," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 42(2), May.
    8. Prokopchuk, Olina & Prokopchuk, Ihor & Mentel, Grzegorz & Bilan, Yuriy, 2020. "Parametric Insurance as Innovative Development Factor of the Agricultural Sector of Economy," AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management, vol. 10(3), September.
    9. Müller, Birgit & Quaas, Martin F. & Frank, Karin & Baumgärtner, Stefan, 2011. "Pitfalls and potential of institutional change: Rain-index insurance and the sustainability of rangeland management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 2137-2144, September.
    10. Marcos Gallacher & Daniel Lema & Laura Gastaldi & Alejandro Galetto, 2016. "Climate variability and agricultural production in argentina: the role of risk-transfer mechanisms," Ensayos de Política Económica, Departamento de Investigación Francisco Valsecchi, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina., vol. 2(4), pages 11-38, Octubre.
    11. Bucheli, Janic & Dalhaus, Tobias & Finger, Robert, 2022. "Temperature effects on crop yields in heat index insurance," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    12. Bokusheva, Raushan, 2010. "Measuring the dependence structure between yield and weather variables," MPRA Paper 22786, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Patrick S. Ward & David L. Ortega & David J. Spielman & Neha Kumar & Sumedha Minocha, 2020. "Demand for Complementary Financial and Technological Tools for Managing Drought Risk," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(2), pages 607-653.
    14. Marcos Gallacher & Daniel Lema & Alejandro Galetto & Laura Gastaldi, 2015. "Climate variability and agricultural production in Argentina: the role of risk-transfer mechanisms," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 583, Universidad del CEMA.
    15. Fuchs Tarlovsky,Alan & Wolff,Hendrik, 2016. "Drought and retribution : evidence from a large-scale rainfall-indexed insurance program in Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7565, The World Bank.
    16. Bokusheva, Raushan, 2004. "Crop insurance in transition: a qualitative and quantitative assessment of insurance products," IAMO Discussion Papers 76, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    17. Isaboke, Hezron Nyarindo & Qiao, Zhang & Nyarindo, Wilckyster Nyateko & Ke, Wang, 2016. "Explaining The Perception Of Smallholders Towards Weather Index Micro-Insurance Alongside Risks And Coping Strategies," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 4(4), pages 1-19, October.
    18. Shih‐Chieh Liao & Shih‐Chieh Chang & Tsung‐Chi Cheng, 2022. "Index‐based renewable energy insurance for Taiwan Solar Photovoltaic Power Plants," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 145-172, June.
    19. Doms, Juliane, 2017. "Put, call or strangle? About the challenges in designing weather index insurances to hedge performance risk in agriculture," 57th Annual Conference, Weihenstephan, Germany, September 13-15, 2017 261990, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    20. Bokusheva, Raushan, 2004. "Crop insurance in transition: A qualitative and quantitative assessment of insurance products (Preliminary results)," IAMO Discussion Papers 14869, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:dsmqz. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.