Jamaica : Toward a Strategy for Financial Weather Risk Management in Agriculture

This report forms part of the technical
assistance provided by the World Bank under the Non-lending
Technical Assistance Program for the Caribbean
'market-based agriculture risk management in the
Caribbean.' The program is largely financed by the
European Union All Agriculture Commodities Program (AACP)
Initiative and contributions from the International Fund for
Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the World Bank. This
document provides technical input for designing a national
strategy for addressing the financial weather risks facing
the agricultural sector of Jamaica. As such, it identifies
the various options from current available financial risk
transfer instruments for addressing crop weather risks for
small farmers (livestock risks are not directly addressed in
this report) and identifies the public investments needed
for supporting market development of the agricultural
insurance market. The report is structured in five sections
to facilitate its presentation. The first two sections
present a snapshot of the Jamaican economy and agricultural
sector, and the current situation of agricultural insurance;
third section addresses a set of key issues for designing a
government strategy for agricultural financial weather risk
management; fourth section contains the elements of public
policy and investments to support market development for
agricultural insurance, and various illustrations of how to
structure financial weather risk management instruments for
the sector. The report concludes with a short section
containing final remarks and recommendations.