Average value of farm in Serbia only EUR 5,000 – Mandatory insurance solution to agriculturists’ problems?

The average value of a farm in Serbia is five times lower than the European average and amounts to only EUR 5,000. At the same time, only 10-12% of agricultural areas in Serbia are insured, it was said at the Serbian Insurance Days conference in Arandjelovac.

Dragica Jankovic, member of the Executive Board of the insurance company Dunav Osiguranje, says that it is necessary for the system of subsidizing agricultural production in Serbia to improve.

She illustrated this with the example of Cyprus, where insurance of agriculturists is mandatory, and added that the state subsidized producers in the amount of 50% and that the percentage in Canada, where the insurance is state-controlled, amounted to 60%.

– Furthermore, there are different models of mandatory insurance in the world, such as the business-commercial insurance, or a public-private partnership. The practice in Portugal shows that the level of insurance using this model is 45-85% of insured subjects, whereas, in the USA, it is 50-75% – Jankovic says.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Agriculture believes that mandatory insurance in agriculture is not possible at the moment and adds that the relevant ministry uses prevention and subsidies in an attempt to increase the amount of insured areas and the livestock population in Serbia.

– The Ministry of Agriculture had 2,000 insurance requests by agriculturists in 2006 and 20,000 in 2016. We are working on raising awareness in agriculturists in the field of insurance and we set aside 400 to 600 million dinars a year for the purpose. However, even with that, the situation is still not satisfactory – said Senad Mahmutovic, State Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture.

The state, he says, subsidizes 40% of the paid insurance premium of agriculturists in Serbia, and the maximum amount an agriculturist can get for the purpose is RSD 2.5 million.

Ministarstvo poljoprivrede, šumarstva i vodoprivrede Republike Srbije

Dunav osiguranje a.d.o. Beograd

Ministry of Agriculture

Dunav Osiguranje

farms in Serbia

insuring farms in Serbia

insuring farms

insurance in agriculture

Serbian Insurance Days Arandjelovac

Dragica Jankovic

subsidizing agricultural production

mandatory insurance of agriculturists

mandatory insurance in agriculture

livestock population insurance

Senad Mahmutovic

insurance premium

average value of a farm in Serbia