Climate change is rapidly altering temperatures, rainfall patterns, humidity, cyclone intensity and drought duration. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are accelerating global warming, and abnormal temperature swings, untimely rain, long droughts, flash floods, rising salinity and changing pest life cycles are seriously damaging crops in farm-dependent Bangladesh.

About 70 percent of Bangladesh's farmers live with climate-related risk. Waterlogging after heavy rain starves rice roots of oxygen; heat stress during pollination leaves rice and wheat grains unfilled; drought dries the soil, disrupts photosynthesis and withers crops. The IPCC says South Asia's farming regions are among the most vulnerable. Floods, cyclones, hailstorms or drought can wipe out 50 to 100 percent of many farmers' seasonal investment, and while smart farming technology, forecasts and climate-resilient varieties offer some protection, they are not enough for farmers' financial survival.

From a scientific point of view, crop insurance is a statistical model based on measuring farm risk and assessing losses. Losses are determined using:

• satellite observation and weather station data;
• Internet of Things (IoT)-based soil moisture sensors;
• NDVI (vegetation index) readings;
• yield forecasting models and machine learning algorithms.

These technologies measure crop growth, stress, moisture and production potential with high accuracy, making loss assessment transparent, fast and scientific.

Weather-index-based crop insurance converts weather risks into measurable indices, such as rainfall, temperature or flood indices. If rainfall falls below a set level, temperature rises above a threshold, or there is excessive rain, prolonged drought, spreading salinity or heavy fog, payment is made automatically. This avoids complicated loss verification and gets money to farmers quickly. The model is gaining popularity worldwide and is being used on a trial basis in Bangladesh, the writer notes, and could protect farmers on a larger scale in future.

Crop insurance does more than compensate losses. It supports farmers' ability to reinvest, their creditworthiness and the stability of the rural economy, and it encourages them to adopt climate-resilient technologies. The writer concludes that crop insurance is one of the strongest institutional supports for future farming, protecting food security, the farm economy and overall development.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.