Other Countries

Nicaragua

In 1997, Skees teamed with Peter Hazell to further the concepts of rainfall index insurance with a World Bank funded project in Nicaragua.Peter Hazell and Jerry Skees provided the first feasibility study in the spring of 1998. Subsequently, Skees and Mario Miranda examined the issue in more detail and made specific recommendations about rainfall insurance in the major cereal production area of northwest Nicaragua, where the leading risk to cereal production is insufficient or excess rainfall. Skees and Miranda suggested that rainfall index insurance contracts could be introduced and sold to individual farmers to hedge against the risk of both drought and excess rain. At that time the government of Nicaragua did not pursue pilot development. However, this seminal work provided the springboard for index insurance piloting by the World Bank.

Morocco

As part of a World Bank project in 2000, Jerry Skees conducted a feasibility study on rainfall index insurance to hedge drought risk for cereal producers in Morocco.

Romania

GlobalAgRisk performed a feasibility study on opportunities for using area-yield and rainfall index insurance for financing catastrophic yield risk for Romanian farmers as part of a USAID project in 2001–2002.

Turkey

In 2002, GlobalAgRisk was contracted by the World Bank to research the potential for agricultural insurance in Turkey. The objective of this project was to meet with stakeholders in the government,agricultural, and private sectors to identify risk management needs and constraints to providing an agricultural insurance program, and to consider the feasibility of index insurance against weather risks for Turkish farmers. The findings and recommendations from this analysis were presented at a stakeholder conference and helped to shape the scope of work for several follow-up projects.

United States of America

U.S. Government
Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP)—GlobalAgRisk has been involved in multiple projects and reviews as requested by the Risk Management Agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture examining issues related to the performance of the FCIP. Skees and others designed an area-yield index insurance product, the Group Risk Plan (GRP), now offered by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.

Private Sector Projects

•     Conceptual design of an index insurance project to hedge against the environmental risk associated with manure storage systems
•     Review and analysis of proposed crop insurance products
•     Feasibility analyses on the use of weather markets for agricultural insurance in the United States