Many of us are not aware because we live surrounded by cement and steel, but this 2021 is not being a good year for the field.
Before, what happened when the year was bad in the countryside was that farmers tightened their belts and, in the long run, the story was also noticeable in the city markets through prices. But that, of course, was before insurance existed.
Those who know about this say that the year 2021 can be described with the concept: scarce and very unevenly distributed rains, together with unusually high temperatures in spring. It has been, therefore, dry and hot spring in many parts of Spain, and very particularly in Castilla y León, especially in the north of the community (Palencia, for example). To make matters worse, the June heatwave arrived, which forced you to get into the pool; but since the cereals do not have a pool nearby, they had to put up with it, and many of them dried up. If the cereal dries up, then it produces less grain or is of lower quality: there is a total or partial loss of the harvest.
If the cereal dries up, then it produces less grain or is of lower quality: there is a total or partial loss of the harvest.
But there is more. At the end of April, there were some frosts that were already quite problematic for cereals and legumes. Up to 141,000 hectares were affected by them. And, to end the story of the perfect storm, never better said, the frost, the heat, and the drought have been joined by a series of storms with hail (that ice petrol that can cause you a bump, but that a plant is loaded) that have affected 170,000 hectares of cereal, especially in Aragon and Castilla-La Mancha.
All this has as a consequence that the insurance of cereals and legumes presents payments for unusual mishaps in its history. Look at the data, which clearly shows that only 1992 is anything close to what is happening this year:
This level of payments is possible, obviously, because there is prior insurance. Spain has agricultural insurance companies plan that is the result of public-private collaboration and whose operation and level of extension provoke curiosity and even envy in more developed countries than ours. In the case of legumes and cereals, the insurance level is 57% this year, although it rises above this set in regions that are highly intensive in these productions.
Of 3.5 million hectares insured, the current forecast is that the total affected will be 1.235 million, that is: one out of every three hectares planted with legumes or cereal.
It is on these occasions that the insurance expresses its function. In this case, stabilizing agricultural income and banishing the endemic evil of centuries, according to which, when the heavens did not respond, the farmer had to go hungry. Agroseguro, which is the pool that assumes the management of these insurances and these payments, handles the forecast of paying an important part of the committed payments already in this month of July. In this way, not only is protection produced, but it becomes effective quickly and efficiently.
