Farmers’ responses to the changes in Hungarian agricultural insurance system

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of crop insurance among Hungarian crop farmers and the responses to the introduction of the two-scheme risk management system. Specifically, first, it examines the economic and environmental factors affecting the willingness of farmers to contract crop insurance. Second, it reveals the relationship between having crop insurance and technical efficiency of crop producing farms. Design/methodology/approach Probit models of panel data are applied to explore the factors of insurance decisions. The relationship between efficiency and insurance is investigated with two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with double bootstrap using panel data for the 2001 to 2014 period. Findings The results of Probit model estimations show that the education, the size, the indebtedness of crop producing farms and the new two-scheme risk management system are in positive correlation, while the concentration of farming activity are in negative correlation with the crop insurance contracting. The estimations of two-stage DEA model reveal that crop producing farms with an agricultural insurance contract are more efficient than the farmers without using this risk management tool. Originality/value Empirical investigation of the influencing factors of agricultural insurance demand in Hungary and the examination of the relationship between insurance and technical efficiency may contribute to the development of Hungarian risk management system.