Although agricultural insurance has been offered in some industrialized countries for more than a century, the agricultural sector remains underserviced in middle- and low-income countries. Since the late
1990s, however, dwindling public support to agricultural producers in emerging markets has led to a renewed interest in agricultural insurance. The development of agricultural risk modeling techniques and the emergence of insurance pools and index-based insurance contributed to a revisiting of the potential role of agriculture insurance in emerging economies.
The World Bank supports the development of agricultural insurance as part of an overall agricultural risk management framework. The World Bank assists middle- and low-income countries in designing and implementing traditional and innovative agricultural crop and livestock insurance products and in forming agricultural insurance pools. These projects are often connected to agricultural finance support efforts and tied to complementary efforts in agricultural extension.