Millions of China's Farmers Now Buy Climate-Change Insurance
Farming on the terraced fields in China becomes less risky with insurance.
Credit: David Woo via Flickr
Weeks before the harvest started last summer, Li Ping's rice paddies were hit by extreme weather. Temperatures of 95 degrees Fahrenheit baked Longtan village in north China for over a month, causing leaf yellowing and damaging grain production. As a result, Li's rice yields decreased by 20 percent compared with normal years.
But Li did not struggle to raise money for his next planting, which he did after previous crop failures. Instead, the 51-year-old farmer waited at home for the money to come.
"I have insured my rice production since 2009," Li said. "The compensation I got didn't recover the total losses, but it did remove part of my financial pressure."
Li is one of hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers who are now using insurance as a tool to hedge against the risks of climate change. China is the world's second-largest agricultural insurance market after the United States by premium income, and it is scrambling to spread the use of climate-related insurance into other sectors.
Keep reading Millions of China's Farmers Now Buy Climate-Change Insurance – Scientific American.
