Farmers’ Views On Crop Insurance And Its Benefits Using Weighted Sum Model (Wsm)

Abstract

Crop insurance plays an important role in the Indian agriculture sector, especially in the delta districts of Tamil Nadu and plays a dynamic role in the agriculture sector. The delta districts of Tamil Nadu are highly dependent on various climatic conditions such as heavy and light monsoons throughout the year, inclement weather, droughts, floods and various climatic uncertainties. Due to climate uncertainty, farmers face pest, disease, low yield, lack of colour, low quantity, quality and other problems in agriculture. Government of India has given high priority to farmers to improve their agricultural activities by getting adequate and high income from agriculture. The government introduced the Crop Insurance Scheme in 1972 to ensure adequate income to farmers through agriculture. The primary objective of the study is to find out the opinion of farmers on crop insurance schemes in the sample district. Descriptive and exploratory methods were used in the research. Subsequently, multi-stage random sampling technique was used to determine and identify the sample farmers. Also, farmers' opinion was analysed with the help of Weighted Sum Model (WSM). Based on the survey results, most of the farmers in the study area have taken insurance under crop insurance schemes to get government subsidies and most of the farmers opined that wide coverage and low premium is another important factor. However, other factors such as higher maturity value, additional coverage and ease of insuring do not influence farmers much to insure under crop insurance schemes.