Presentation at the 5th Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture. Title: Improving climate risk management through smartphone camera data driven advisory and insurance: Evidence from India Speaker: Samyuktha Kannan

1. Improving climate
risk-management through
smartphone camera-data driven
advisory and insurance
Samyuktha Kannan
Berber Kramer
Francisco Ceballos
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

2. Motivation
Crop Insurance
• Expensive to assess losses
• Inaccurate
• Poor trust among farmers
• Substite for risk-reducing tech
Agro Advisory
• Not responsive or demand-driven
at scale
• Infrastructure heavy
• Farmers often turn to other
sources
Can we bundle advisories
and insurance ?
Tech
adoption is
less risky
Expected
payouts are
lower
Improved tech
adoption +
Reduced risk
Common challenges:
Insurance
to advisory
Advisory to
insurance
Bundled
product

3. Innovation
Read more about the operations and a feasibility assessment at
https://www.ifpri.org/project/PBInsurance
Personalized
advisory
(two-way)
Individual
insurance

4. Why this works
• Leverages exponentially increasing smartphone prevalence
in dev countries
• Transparent and voluntary, high farmer engagement
• Low cost, scalable with opportunities for automation.
• Single data source can be used for multiple purposes

5. Research
3.9 225.4
351.3
0
200
400
600
PBA only PBI only PBA+PBI
Willingnesstopay
(inRs.)
*
(iii) Advisories reportedly helped reduce risk and farmers’ WTP for bundled product
was higher, suggesting potential synergies between insurance and advisories
8% 9%
26%
N.A 2.6
5.7
0
2
4
6
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
% extremely satisfied with program Average no. of repeat pictures
taken per site
Numberofpictures
%oftotalrespondents
Control PBA PBA+PBI
***
*
(ii) Providing PBI improves farmer engagement and satisfaction with advisory
service
0.64 0.50 0.14
1.14
0.82
0.32
0
0.5
1
1.5
All advice Advice provided through IVR and
PBA
Advice provided through PBA only
Knowledgescore(0-5)
Control PBA/PBA+PBI
***
***
***
(i) PBA improved knowledge of recommended practices
95% 81%
0%
50%
100% *
%rep
advisorieshelp
reducerisk
*****
***
Generic
advisory
Advisory
only
Advisory
and
Insurance
Location:
141 villages, Haryana,
India 2017-18
Design: RCT comparing
Data sources:
Household surveys,
information provided on
the app
No. of farmers: 1779

6. Research
The pilot results suggest that a bundled advisory + insurance product has a
high value proposition.
We are currently further testing the impacts of bundling on technology
adoption through:
We welcome questions, comments and insights.
RCT in Haryana, India
•Longer term
•Cross randomized
•More crops
•Behavioural and qualitative analyses
External validity testing in India
•Other regions/climatic zones in Odisha
•More crops
•Working with existing advisory
programs