Agriculture and livestock industry leaders discuss new insurance items for their sectors with related agencies to prevent losses

Members of the agriculture and livestock in­dustry met with officials from the Ministry of Ag­riculture, Livestock, and Irrigation and Myanmar Insurance Enterprise to discuss the prospect of offering new insurance items for their sectors, according to a UMFCCI press release.

Insurance for agricul­ture and livestock busi­nesses would prevent against significant losses caused by crop destruc­tion, uncommonly low yields, animal disease, and a host of other occa­sional speed humps.

Dr. Aung Thu, Union Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation was enthusiastic about the idea stating, "insurance will be a win-win for both insurance companies look­ing to expand and agricul­tural or livestock business­es who need protection against losses."

As a result of the UMF­CCI meeting, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Irrigation, the UMF­CCI, trade associations as well as the Myanmar In­surance Enterprise have formed a special working group to better research the demands of the sector and tailor the insurance packages per those needs.

Simultaneously, the Myanmar Rice Federa­tion and Japanese In­surer, Sompo Holdings, are conducting research to better understand the situation of rice farmers in Bago and Mandalay Regions, according to U Ye Min Aung, Secretary of Myanmar Rice Federa­tion.

Off the bat, agricultural­ists agreed that an insur­ance based on the effects of weather would be pref­erable to one that cov­ers net loss in real-time. In recent years, global warming has caused an increase in flooding and a consequential loss of crops.

Additionally, Myan­mar’s chicken breeding farms had a scare recently because of a run in with H5N1 and H1N1 infec­tions that caused $165 million in losses, U Mya Han, Vice Chairman of Myanmar Fisheries Fed­eration, said.

Insurance for the ag­ricultural sector needs to cover a wide-variety of farming ranging from transportation of crops to yearly and seasonal har­vests, as well as long-term and short-term planting crops.

To ensure the successes of this inaugural insur­ance package, the special working group is seeking the consultation of farm­ers, breeders, and mer­chants, from all over the nation.

Myanmar Insurance En­terprise and Myanmar Agriculture Development Bank are working togeth­er to introduce a new life insurance item for farm­ers to be available in No­vember.

(Myanmar Business Today: https://www.mmbiztoday.com/articles/industry-leaders-discuss-agriculture-livestock-insurance )

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