Government to Introduce Farm Income Insurance SchemeHome

The government plans to introduce Farm Income Insurance (FII) scheme to give cover on earnings expected from crop yield, said by Union Agriculture Minister.

The minister also said that his Ministry would provide soil health cards to all farmers in the country which would inform them about strengths and weakness of their farm soil.

"Only subsidy cannot ensure farmers' income. While some states have opted to implement the old National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS), some opted to implement a modified NAIS. However, Gujarat came up with this idea of an income-based agriculture scheme," Singh said.

"We have been holding meetings to finalise the FII scheme. I hope that the Gujarat government will give its guidance to make it effective," Singh said. In 1999, the Government of India introduced a National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS), which operates on the basis of area-based crop insurance to protect farmers against unavoidable perils like drought, heat, insects and others.

Later, NAIS was replaced by a modified NAIS, which was introduced during 2010-11. Both NAIS and Modified NAIS provide cover against failure of crop (yield) to farmers.

Source: Economic Times