KARACHI - A public subsidy programme should be developed to create incentives for agricultural insurers to expand their services to small farmers. Public support should focus on the development of risk market infrastructure and public goods that would give agricultural insurers incentives to offer affordable and effective insurance to farmers, and particularly small farmers. It was observed by speakers and participants of Provincial seminar on issues and Challenges in Crop Insurance in Pakistan jointly organised by Participatory Development Initiatives (PDI) Oxfam-GB and European Commission held at local hotel on Tuesday. Sindh Chamber of Agriculture President, Syed Nadeem Qamar, Sindh Agricr, Agriculture Department , deputy secretary Shafiq Sheikh, National Bank agriculture Credit officer Ayaz Baloch, agriculture expert Dr Fateh Marri, S Abdul Majeed The United Insurance Co. of Pakistan Ltd General Manager and PDI representatives, Khalida Brohi and Noor Baladi and Romana Lakho spoke in the seminar. They adopted various resolutions in the seminar, in which they demanded from the federal government that it should be developed an appropriate legal and regulatory framework to support agriculture insurance. They recommended that the insurance law is applicable to agriculture insurance but enabling different provisions should be made for agriculture insurance where, the appropriate regulations should be made under the insurance laws. They observed that government should devise a mechanism that to collect and manage reliable data regarding agriculture production, agriculture losses, product prices and market trends. The banks and companies dealing in insurance should have easy access to such data. Speakers of seminar suggested that Government along with private banks and insurance companies should chalk out a programme to educate the small farmers about the procedures to avail different crop insurance products to be launched in future and those existing and the benefit s for ensuring their crops. It was recommended by agriculture expert that the federal and provincial governments should take efforts to engage international reinsures to encourage the local banks and insurance companies to come forward with different crop insurance schemes should be focused on the small farmers. Agriculture experts opined that the role of the federal government and provincial governments in the financing of catastrophic risks in agriculture should be clarified. saying that if federal government wishes to offer a subsidy to local insurance companies, it should offer free stop loss reinsurance at an agreed proportional level to the provincial government as well as provincial insurance companies. They recommended that a technical Support Unit as a central agriculture insurance service provider suggesting that said unit should have support from the federal government and linkages to the provincial governments, insurers and reinsures.