Investigating of Date Crop Insurance Expansion Inhibitory Factors in Iran: A Case Study from the Saravan Region

The viability and efficiency of crop insurance policies depend on farmers’ demand and willingness for crop insurance. The present study analyzes the insurance demand of 441 date farmers in the Saravan region. Results showed that 68.87 percent of the farmers did not agree with insurance. The results of the ordinal logit model at five different levels indicated that awareness of insurance benefits, insurance record, previous‐year yield, and educational level, the standard deviation of income, orchard area, and satisfaction with insurance services were the main variables influencing the demand for insurance. The coefficient of variation of the likelihood of insurance adoption was estimated at all five levels. A one percent increase in satisfaction with insurance services increases the likelihood of a person’s shift from the ‘strongly disagree’ category to the ‘disagree’ category by 6.3 percent. Older date farmers abstain from insurance adoption, which needs reflection given the religious view in the region on interest rates on the one hand and the resistance of older people against modern risk management methods on the other.