According to PRIAO-IRC, the research project is conducted by Dr. Aziz Ahmadzadeh, Assistant Professor of IRC with the collaboration of Dr. Jalil Badpeyma, and Dr. Fatemeh Azadbakht, Faculty Member of IRC, Dr. Medrik Pirsaheb, Dr. Ramin Pourzahedi, and Shadi Shokri Kaltapeh. The project is written in five sections including ‘Generals’, ‘Analysis of the Aquafarming Risks and the Relevant Available Insurance Coverage in the World’, ‘Field Study of the Risks Associated with Freshwater Fish Cultivation in Iran and Exploring the Present Risk Management Solutions’, ‘Recommending Insurance Solutions and Their Regulation’, and ‘Concluding Remarks’.
Aquafarming is one of the effective and efficient ways of producing white meat. It also generates employment and boosts export. However, it has its own risks. This makes its risk management difficult, discouraging producers from developing their business and attracting investments. Alleviating concerns of the producers by providing insurance coverage may encourage production. Thus, with the aim of developing various types of insurance solutions and increasing the scale of the commercial insurance business in aquafarming, an applied study was carried out by IRC.
The results of the present research project, drawing on the global experiences in providing insurance coverage for aquatic animals, indicate that the structure of takaful funds for covering freshwater fish risks with the takaful operator as the coverage provider and agriculture fund as the retakaful setup, is the most optimized and localized solution to manage the risks in such business.
According to the study, four fundamental steps are suggested for achieving a sustainable and efficient coverage for the risks associated with freshwater fish cultivation with the role of the commercial takaful operator in mind. The first step is to redefine the role and significance of the major aquaculture business players in managing and mitigating risks; the second step is to restructure the agriculture insurance fund from a supportive role in compensating losses into a reinsuring entity that reduces the market flaws; the third step is to consider holistically the risks associated with the aquafarms in a specific region and the whole country; and the fourth step is to provide a takaful or mutual model for developing insurance coverage for freshwater fish cultivation.
Those interested to access and download the Persian full text with English abstract of the aforementioned research report, please take a visit to https://www.irc.ac.ir/fa-IR/Irc/4944/Articles/view/16040/1637/.