The Hindu Business Line : Crop insurance awareness very low among farmer households: NSSO

THE crop insurance awareness level among the Indian farming community is abysmally low. Only 4 per cent of farmer households had ever insured their crops and 57 per cent of such households did not even know that crops could be insured, according to a report based on the survey carried out by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).

This report, titled `Some Aspects of Farming', is the third in the series of five and is based on the NSSO survey of 51,770 farmer households spread over 6,638 villages in the country.

NSSO carried out the `Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers' at the instance of the Agriculture Ministry during January-December 2003 for the 2002-03 agriculture year.

This report, which was released on Tuesday, also showed that only 8 per cent of farmer households had heard of the WTO. It also said that about 18 per cent of farmer households knew about bio-fertilisers and nearly 29 per cent understood what minimum support price meant.

Almost 60 per cent said that they liked farming as a profession.

Nearly 27 per cent did not like farming, as it was not profitable, while 8 per cent thought it was risky. About 40 per cent said that, given a choice, they would take up some other career.

About 29 per cent of the households had a co-operative society member, while 5 per cent had a self-help group member and only 2 per cent had a member of a registered farmers' organisation.

Only 19 per cent of farmer households had availed themselves of services from the co-operative sector.

Most of these households availed themselves of either credit facilities or services related to seeds or fertilisers.

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Crop insurance awareness very low among farmer households: NSSO