Representative body of Southern Punjab's business community has urged the Government on Sunday to introduce a mandatory crop insurance scheme immediately to save the farming community from financial losses.
"Better insurance coverage is imperative for the development of agricultural economy which will also reduce uncertainty among farming communities," said president of Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) Fareed Mughis Sheikh in a statement.
He further said that sound agri insurance system would help strengthen the agriculture sector of country and successfully address the menace of food insecurity in Pakistan. He said that farmers could be saved from negative impact of disease, drought, flood, pests, natural disasters, weather, rains and other risks through a proper insurance cover.
"Agricultural yields can go up significantly and livestock position can also be improved if cultivators act upon improved methods which should also be covered under insurance scheme," he stressed.
Sheikh said that insurance companies needed to be encouraged to offer wide range of products to the rural population that felt them unsafe due to frequent floods, calamities and pest attacks. He called for a mechanism to provide agricultural risk management training to people and equip them to identify opportunities and develop products that help mitigate risks.
"There is a need to build the capacity of the institutions by providing knowledge and skills required to design, price and implement agricultural insurance programmes, he proposed saying that insurance couldn't obliterate the risk altogether because Agri-insurance alone was not enough to solve the problems of growers.