A brief introduction to the role of insurance as a risk management mechanism in livestock and aquaculture enterprises, exploring some of the complexities involved in the financial mechanism for risk sharing.

Governments in developing countries have been increasingly involved in the support of agricultural (crop and livestock) insurance programs in recent years. In their attempts to design and implement agricultural insurance, they have sought technical and financial assistance from the international community and particularly from the World Bank. One of the recurrent requests from governments regards international experience with agricultural insurance, not only in developed countries, where in some cases agricultural insurance has been offered for more than a century, but also in middleand low-income countries. Governments are particularly interested in the technical, operational, financial, and institutional aspects of public support to agricultural insurance. 'Government Support to Agricultural Insurance' informs public and private decision makers involved in agricultural insurance about recent developments, with a particular focus on middle- and low-income countries. It presents an updated picture of the spectrum of institutional frameworks and experiences with agricultural insurance, ranging from countries in which the public sector provides no support to those in which governments heavily subsidize agricultural insurance. This analysis is based on a survey conducted by the World Bank s agricultural insurance team in 2008 in 65 developed and developing countries. Drawing on the survey results, the book identifies some key roles governments can play to support the development of sustainable, affordable, and cost-effective agricultural insurance programs.

These Guidelines are an outcome of a joint FAO, Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA) and Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA) Regional Workshop on the Promotion of Aquaculture Insurance in Asia, held in Bali, Indonesia, from 30 April to 2 May 2007. The workshop was hosted by the Government of Indonesia, Directorate General for Aquaculture, and attended by policy-makers and international experts from the rural finance, insurance and aquaculture sectors from both the region and elsewhere. The document also contains the Report of the Regional Workshop and two background papers produced for the workshop.

Risk and poverty are inextricably linked. Susceptibility to risk is a defining feature of what it means to be poor. Poor people often live in environments characterized by high weather and disease risk, and it is poor households that have the fewest tools to deal with drought, floods, and disease when they occur. Breaking the link between risk and poverty by insuring poor people both lessens the affliction of poverty and allows poor people to participate in income growth. This set of briefs considers how to increase the tools available to poor households to manage agricultural and health risks. The focus is how to develop insurance markets, along with other financial instruments such as credit, savings, and social protection policies. The series does not document the proven impact of insurance markets for the welfare of poor people; rather, it brings together briefs written by businesspeople, policymakers, and researchers that document innovations, lessons learned, and areas of future work and action.

This book, which deals comprehensively with agricultural insurance, is the second edition of a book that was published in 1967. The book first deals with the nature of agricultural risks and their insurability. The second part describes the principles and practices of the main types of insurance currently applied to agriculture in different countries. The third and last part is a critical examination of the applicability of the techniques of crop and livestock insurance so far evolved in developed countries to developing countries, and also the possibilities of international reinsurance of national crop insurance systems.

This guide for university departments and research institutes explores multi-risk crop insurance for developing countries. It covers the needs and benefits of crop insurance, how to approach it, problems and difficulties, and more.