“Pasture Compensation Insurance Line Isn’t Working”

Agro-food cooperatives of Extremadura have sent a statement in which they accuse Agroseguro and the vegetation indices of “reflecting above-average readings”, while ranchers are facing the second driest winter since 1961, “a situation which is ruining many farms’.

For this reason, from the agrarian organization they have wanted to make clear their disagreement -as on other occasions- with the operation of this line, for which they urge Enesa and the Territorial Commission of Agricultural Insurance of Extremadura to “begin work on new models and indexes in the pasture compensation insurance, so that the insurance adequately compensates for the economic damage caused by the drought».

«At the moment -affect from Agro-food Cooperatives-, the insurance does not reflect the current reality of the farmer and much less compensates the economic damage that the drought is causing at a time when the costs of supplementation have reached historical maximums».

Likewise, in the statement they emphasize that, “while the readings published by Agroseguro last January do not declare any area of ​​Extremadura eligible for compensation, the State Meteorological Agency has defined the winter as the second driest in the historical series, which started in 1961».

Cooperatives assures that the Extremaduran livestock sector has opted for this insurance, since the cooperatives have supported its contracting “disseminating, financing, and working to make it easier for the farmer to contract this insurance.” However, since 2020, and with the publication of the latest readings, they mean that “we are left without arguments to defend this insurance against the sector, which has been suffering from a chained drought since the beginning of 2021.”

And they declare: «It is necessary for Enesa, the Territorial Commission of Extremadura and Agroseguro to initiate studies and work to improve pasture drought insurance so that it adjusts as much as possible to the reality of the livestock sector and is effectively an efficient tool to offset part of the economic damage caused by the drought.

previous cases

Already last February, Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias demanded that the pasture compensation insurance show the reality that the Extremaduran countryside is experiencing in the face of the worst drought in the last 25 years. And it is that, according to the organization, this was not reflected in the readings published by Agroseguro corresponding to the last quarter of 2021.

The cooperative livestock sector thus denounced the “lack of correlation” that existed between the data offered by Agroseguro, with vegetation indices in the months of October to December 2021 higher than the reality of the Extremaduran countryside, when, they pointed out, “there are areas in which even lack water to give the cattle to drink.