OREANDA-NEWS. May 06, 2010. The aggregate amount of insurance compensations paid in 2009 by the insurance company ROSNO to the agricultural producers located in Privolzhsky Federal Okrug due to crop loss and shortage exceeded 45 mln. roubles, which is almost twice as high as in 2008, reported the press-centre of ROSNO.

The arid weather prevailing in the summer season of 2009 resulted in the shortage and loss of grain, buckwheat and sunflower crops in Povolzh’e. The largest volumes of losses incurred under agricultural insurance contracts were settled by the Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov and Saratov branches of ROSNO’s Privolzhskaya Directorate. Serious losses were incurred by the farms located in Bashkortostan and the Ulyanovsk Region, as the largest insurance compensations were paid to the agricultural producers in these regions.

In 2009, the company’s Bashkiria branch reimbursed the local agricultural producer for the damage incurred due to the loss of spring wheat in the area of 5,600 ha, resulting from drought. The insurance compensation equaled 7.9 million roubles.

The last year’s drought also entailed wheat and sugar beet shortage at the two farms located in Tsilninsky and Melekessky districts of the Ulyanovsk Region in the total area of 600 ha. The aggregate insurance compensation paid by ROSNO to the Ulyanovsk agrarians amounted to 2.2 mln. roubles.

4 farms of the Saratov Region, having insured their agricultural risks with ROSNO, faced crop shortage due to the drought observed in this Povolzh’e area in 2009. These farms have received insurance compensations totaling over 4 mln. roubles.

"The agricultural activities performed in the majority of the Russian regions are prone to certain risks and notably affected by meteorological conditions", notes Mr. Leonid Golovanov, head of ROSNO’s Agricultural and Natural Risk Insurance Department. — "Weather risks insurance is an effective risk management tool for agricultural producers and a real funding instrument enabling machinery modernization financing and gathering more crops. The Russian farmers are gradually becoming aware of this fact, viewing agricultural risks insurance as an efficient income protection tool".

For many years, ROSNO has been conducting agricultural insurance operations. The company has formed a specialized Agricultural and Natural Risk Insurance Department. ROSNO participates in the state-supported agricultural producer insurance program. The crop insurance program contemplates protection against complete loss (destruction) or partial loss (shortage) as a result of natural phenomena negatively affecting agricultural production (drought, freeze, winterkill, asphyxiation, hail damage, dust storms and sand storms, earthquake, avalanche, mud flow, snowmelt flood, and soil overwetting).