The Impact of Tea Crop Insurance in the Development of Tea Industry (Case study: Otagvar, Langrood)

The Agricultural Insurance Fund has covered tea crop since (2003). Due to undisputable effect of tea industry in the livelihood and the economy of Northern cities and people of the region, the Fund’s performance gains its importance. So in this paper, we investigate the impact of tea crop insurance in development of tea industry and factors effective on this impact. Our main question to be answered is that whether, in the present situation, tea crop insurance has been able to wield its role in the development of tea industry. To provide an answer to the question above, we employed variety of qualitative and quantitative methods of research. Quantitative method has been done as survey and our instrument was a questionnaire the questions of which were answered by 200 farmers in Otagvar, Langrood. To achieve a better sample population, we have used the random and cluster methods of sampling. Qualitative method has used the discussion groups with insurance agents in Amlash and Kumleh and interview with experts of Organization for Rural Cooperation and Agricultural Insurance Fund. Our findings show that, most of the farmers in the region are not satisfied with the performance of insurance Tea industry has faced several problems,inter alia, imports of large amounts of foreign tea, the lack or non-existence of statistics and data, unsuitable conditions of harvest and, in spite of the insurance of tea crop by the Fund, many other problems remain and the current procedure of insuring, tea crop has raised issues like improper mechanisms of loss evaluation and pay, disproportionate ratio of damage to crop and payments to farmers and delays in payments. Overall result of research shows this fact that insurance of tea product hasn,t been able influential for decreasing of risk, increasing of confidence and compensation of loss emerging from drought. Also it couldn,t have suitable performance for development of this industry.