Coping with risk and climate change in farming: exploring an Index-based crop Insurance in Burundi

A large part of the Burundian population lives in rural areas with nearly 90% of the population depending on agriculture for food and income. Land productivity has been declining over time due to the depletion of soil fertility and increasing soil erosion. Climatic hazards, mainly excessive rainfall, droughts, pests and diseases cause large losses in agricultural production that affect the living conditions of both producers and consumers. The main challenge is how to manage land more sustainably and enable farmers to cope with these risks that undermine their agricultural production, as such finding strategies that stimulate agricultural investments.Facing this challenge, the objective of this thesis is to shed light on factors influencing investments in sustainable land management (SLM) and to what extent an index-based crop insurance (IBI) helps farmers to overcome risks associated to farming. To reach this objective, four research questions were formulated and the results are presented in six chapters.The introductory chapter 1 sets the scene and delineates the problem statement. It briefly explains the land degradation problem in Burundi, potential SLM investments (i.e., practices) farmers can undertake, the risks related to farming, and conceptual aspects of crop insurance and an IBI in particular.Chapter 2 examines the factors influencing the SLM investments using a multinomial logistic regression (MLR) model. The results indicate that farmers from the study area experience severe land degradation which is manifested by soil erosion and soil fertility depletion. The results of the MLR model show that the occurrence of soil erosion, access to credit, time spent by the household head in farming, and age of the household head, all increase investments of households in SLM. Hence, in order to enhance farmers’ investments in SLM practices and more effectively cope with land degradation, this chapter suggests that decision makers should particularly focus on improv