From AgroInsurance, September 2:
The farmers of Ruby Valley Rural Municipality located in the northern area of the district are reliant on yak farming for several generations. However, in a lack of livestock insurance, they are prone to suffer heavy losses from time to time.*If there was some way to connect the Nepalese farmers with the Tibetan yak insurance salesman from the August post before his despondency leads him into the depths of despair:
Singha Thapa, a farmer from Tipling, said that though the income is good, sometimes yaks die unexpectedly. “We have been suffering from loss as they die of disease or fall from cliff,” he said. “Death of a yak means a great loss for us.”
Farmers take yaks to pasturelands of Pangsang, Babil, Dhading and bordering area of Rasuwa for grazing. Thapa has 35 yaks in his herd and spends most of his time caring for the herd, feeding them and taking them to pastureland. He said when it snows, yaks die falling from cliffs while coming back from grazing. “Yaks have added to the income but sometimes we have to suffer huge losses,” he said. “As no insurance program caters to us, we have been suffering losses worth millions.”
A total of 23 yaks died due to snowfall at Tipling and Somdang in February. Dozens of yaks remained hungry and farmers underwent hardships to transport food for their herds as the snowfall had covered the grasses they could feed on.
Yak farmers find it hard to save themselves and their herds when the ways are covered with snowfall. Yaks that go for grazing are covered in snow and later their bodies are discovered after their death. A single yak can cost from Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000 but there is no provision of insurance for their security. The livestock are not insured even if the farmers want it....MORE
On the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau, in central China's Gansu Province, nomads can buy insurance policies for their sheep and yaks. The Chinese government subsidizes the plans, and on highways cutting across Gannan, a Tibetan prefecture in Gansu, billboards advertising the insurance programs share the roadside with signs promoting family planning. Behind the billboards lie vast expanses of grassland—rolling canvases of deep green that stretch into oblivion—where sheep and yaks graze, as if Chinese Communist Party officials have placed them there for a photo shoot.
In Langmusi, a small monastery town, I found a local insurance administrator in a café, slumped over a table and mumbling to himself. He stared vacantly at four empty beer cans and then spotted me across the room.
"Meiguo pengyou! Lai!" "American friend! Come!" The day was young—1 p.m. on a Thursday—and I asked why he'd already begun drinking.
"I took a day off today. There's nothing to do."
"Why?"
"My job has no meaning."
"Business isn't good?"
"It's bad," he said. "This insurance thing, it doesn't have any meaning." He looked into his beer glass, sniffled, and shook his head.
I offered, optimistically, that insurance could help a lot of people. There were lots of nomadic shepherds in Tibet—wasn't there demand? He shook his head again.
"Nobody buys the insurance. Nomads don't understand insurance."....
*****....As the afternoon wore on, his depression grew more personal. Middle-aged and far from his home village, he worried about his aging parents. At one point, he began to sob, imagining them dying alone while he failed to sell yak and sheep insurance.
Later, at dinner, he ate slowly, the way a sick person does when he's not hungry, and then sauntered out of the café. I expected his exit would mark the last time I ever discussed yak insurance with anyone....MORE
