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Policy Brief “Agriculture in times of drought: How digitalisation can support sustainable risk management” published

24 August 2018

In view of the current drought period in Germany, IAMO published the IAMO Policy Brief 35 on “Agriculture in times of drought: How digitalisation can support sustainable risk management”. The current drought situation in Germany has become one of the most discussed topics this summer. Agriculture in particular expects considerable economic losses due to crop damage. While droughts have only now become the focus of public attention in Germany, farmers in Eastern Europe or Central Asia have been suffering from increasing drought events for more than a decade. There is an increasing need for modern risk management tools to adapt agriculture to extreme weather events. Digital technologies offer a variety of innovative prerequisites for effective risk management. Germany is ideal conditions to use digital technologies to support market-based risk instruments such as drought insurance. Accordingly, incentives should be provided for adoption of sustainable market-based forms of risk management so that farmers are not dependent on aid payments during droughts.