KOCHI: Gopi, a farmer hailing from Wayanad district, was expecting a bumper crop from his paddy fields, but unfortunately things went awry and he suffered heavy losses at the end of the harvest. Blame it on the deficient monsoon rains, which resulted in low yield. Like Gopi, there are several farmers across the state who have suffered monetary losses after crop failures.
Startlingly, even such adverse conditions have failed to rouse the state ryots to take up the Centre’s flagship crop insurance schemes - Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) and the newly-introduced Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY).
While PMFBY scheme is still in the implementation stage in the state, data shows that only around 22,000 farmers in Kerala have enrolled under the restructured WBCIS during the Kharif 2016 season for which the notification was issued by the State Government in July 2016.
“I have suffered monetary losses for the second year running owing to poor rainfall. I’m a medium-scale farmer and have never thought of taking insurance cover before. But with unpredictable weather conditions becoming the order of the day, I think the time has come for farmers like me to enroll under the insurance schemes to compensate for the losses,” says Gopi.
Sources said that of the total enrolments so far in the state, majority are loanee farmers for whom taking crop insurance is mandatory.
When contacted, officials with the Agriculture Insurance Company (AIC), which is the implementing agency in the state, blamed the State Government for the tepid response from the part of farmers towards the insurance schemes.
“Kharif 2016 was the first season after the Centre launched the PMFBY along with restructured WBCIS. There was an initial delay from the part of the State Government in issuing the notifications. We hope more farmers will become part of the insurance schemes, once the schemes are implemented in full scale,” said a senior official with the Agriculture Insurance Company (AIC).
While the official data stands at 22,000, AIC officials said the number of farmers enrolled under the WBCIS in the state has gone up to 35,000 in recent days.