The Czech agricultural insurance market and a prediction of its development in the context of the European Union

Abstract

In the market economy, agriculture ranks among the important political and economic issues. Risks associated with agricultural activity can be catastrophic. For farmers and farms, damages resulting from materialized risks represent significant and existence-threatening problems. For the state, damages in agriculture can endanger the food supply chain, cause fluctuation in employment or jeopardize the state’s foreign-policy position due to lack of self-sufficiency. This is why it is necessary to discuss the methods and ways to deal with the problem, to eliminate agricultural risks or to minimize their occurrence and materialization. One of the possible ways is insurance. With regard to these facts, the author attempts to make an analysis of the possible ways to eliminate risks that endanger agricultural production and, according to this analysis, to describe the basic approaches to minimizing or eliminating the materialization of risks associated with agricultural activity. Subsequently, the author focuses on agricultural insurance systems in the countries of the European Union, and on the present-day situation in the field of agricultural insurance in the Czech Republic.