What is the advantage of the “everything under one roof” model that you offer to farmers?
With crop insurance the issue is the risk of frost damage and drought. But hail is also on the rise, in areas where it did not occur before. With livestock insurance there is growing interest in insurance against diseases requiring culling, such as classical swine fever and, after fifty years, now foot-and-mouth disease in cattle.
Do you recommend that farmers combine classic insurance with other risk management tools, such as derivatives or reserve funds?
Farmers in Slovakia have access to insurance products of the same type and quality as their colleagues in Western Europe. However, many challenges persist, for example limited possibilities for covering consequential losses caused by epidemics, or the discrimination of large agricultural businesses in state support. Small farms often bypass livestock insurance because they can cover losses from their own reserves. The managing director of Agropoistenie, Marek Dudáš, speaks about these topics. Together with his team he is dealing with compensation for all the farms affected so far in southern and western Slovakia.
How do you assess the level of insurance cover of Slovak farmers compared with the standard in Western Europe?
It cannot. Even now there is demand for insurance of stocks that are destroyed together with infected cows. Unfortunately, such an insurance product does not exist. Whether it is necessary at all, and how to dispose of, for example, feed on the affected farm, depends on the decision of the veterinarians. That is why these losses should be reimbursed by the state, because it ordered them of a privately farming farmer for the food safety of the whole country.
Most of our clients are in this category and their needs are specific, mainly in the way of reporting and communication. A specific feature of a large business is also that it loses entitlement to premium support for crops and livestock. This situation is current today and I have information that the state is preparing a change so that larger farmers will not be penalised for their size.
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