Agricultural Insurance For Vietnamese Coffee Trees: Issues And Analyze The Necessity To Apply Agricultural Insurance

Dang Minh Duc 
Deputy Editor-in-Chief of European Studies Review, 
Institute for European Studies, Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam  

        Agricultural  insurance  is a non-life  insurance policy where  the  subjects  for  insurance  are  the risks arising from agricultural production and rural life, including the risks associated with crops, livestock, supplies, goods, raw materials, factories (Olivier Mahul, 2011 and Duc, 2013). As an agricultural  economy, with  over  70%  of  the population  currently  living  in  the  rural  areas, agricultural  production  in Vietnam  has  significant importance to  the  country‟s political,  socio-economic  security.  In 2012  for  instance,  the  total  exports  of  agricultural-forestry-fisheries  in Vietnam  reached  USD23.9  billion, accounting  for  20.85%  of  the  country's  total commodity exports. The total exports of goods in 2012 was recorded at USD114.6 billion, a growth of 18% from  2011  figures. Agricultural production  faces a  number  of risks,  including prices, weather, epidemics, natural disasters. Statistical  records show that such  risks  cause an annual  loss of USD1.8  billion  (Le  Ben,  2013).      

      Particularly,  in  the  recent years,  agricultural  production  have been under great pressure  from nature, with natural  calamities and epidemics occuring at an increasing rate and severity. The Vietnamese Government has realized the need to establish a risk mitigation mechanism for agricultural production and agricultural  insurance has succeeded in meeting this objective in part (Rosa S.Rolle, 2011). This is a relatively new type of insurance, hence,  implementation  difficulties  remain,  in  terms  of legal framework, implementation, awareness of enterprises and the citizens.