Indian agriculture presents a hard paradox. It employs 44% of the workforce, occupies 60% of the land and uses 83% of freshwater, but contributes about 15% of gross value added. Farm productivity is barely a quarter of that in the rest of the economy. Nearly 44% of cultivated land remains rain-fed. Floods and droughts now strike every second or third year with rising frequency.

Farming is still the only major enterprise conducted under the open sky. Even good planning cannot assure output. Crop insurance should therefore be a powerful shield. In practice, it has often failed that test.

An EGROW Foundation webinar examined why decades of crop insurance schemes have left Indian farmers exposed to nature’s vagaries, and how the system can be repaired.