University of Florida Researchers Publish Findings in Crop Insurance (Assessing the impact of sowing dates and ENSO in a drought index-based insurance for soybean): Agriculture – Crop Insurance

2023 SEP 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Agriculture Daily -- Research findings on crop insurance are discussed in a new report. According to news originating from Gainesville, Florida, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, “Crop insurance has been an important mechanism used by farmers to protect the economic and yield losses produced by extreme weather events. Alternatively, index-based insurance (IBI) has been evaluated in many parts of the world as a mechanism to avoid moral hazard and adverse selection from traditional crop insurance products.”

The news editors obtained a quote from the research from University of Florida: “However, there is a lack of knowledge on how the sowing date impacts the IBI triggers and tick size. In addition, few studies have evaluated how the frequency of payouts is affected by climate phenomena such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In this study, we aimed to develop a drought index based-insurance for soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) in the Southeastern US, where the triggers and payouts were quantified for sowing dates and ENSO phases. Simulated soybean life cycle and grain yield for multiple sites, sowing dates, and maturity groups were used to calibrate the index triggers. The index triggers were assessed based on the period of measurement, sowing time, and ENSO phase. Our results show that the accumulation of water stress between flowering and physiological maturity using quantile regression increased the accuracy of payments. The results also highlighted a higher frequency of payments triggered when soybean seasons in the Southeastern US were under La Nina influence.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “The results also presented larger payments generated when the soybean was sown during April and May in comparison to later sowing dates. These results could be used by insurance companies and public administration to improve the efficiency of IBI products offered.”

For more information on this research see: Assessing the impact of sowing dates and ENSO in a drought index-based insurance for soybean. Climate Risk Management, 2023,41():100544. (Climate Risk Management - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/climate-risk-management/). The publisher for Climate Risk Management is Elsevier.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2023.100544.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Daniel Perondi, Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States. Additional authors for this research include Clyde W. Fraisse, Jonathan A. Watson, Kenneth J. Boote, Lincoln Zotarelli, Ray G. Huffaker.

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