Development of software solutions for agricultural insurances

This lines deals with the development of software solutions for agricultural insurances.

The solutions can be grouped in three categories:

1. Development of index-based insurance products
This activities is based on the use of complex biophysical models to simulate the impact of biotic and a-biotic factors (e.g., extreme weather events) on crop yields, and on the use of weather inputs and biophysical model outputs to develop index-based products via meta-models easy to be understood by agricultural insurance customers.

2. Simulation systems for the quantification of the different components of the yield gap (e.g., for discriminating between losses due to insured and non-insured factors)
These services are based on the use of biophysical models to (i) estimate crop potential for the current season, (ii) quantify the yield gap (difference between potential and actual crop yields), and (iii) decompose the yield gap in losses due to different biotic (e.g., diseases) and a-biotic factors (e.g., frost, drought), thus allowing to quantify losses due to insured and non-insured factors).

3. Services to support customers
This activity deals with the development of services to support farmers in optimizing crop management, thus to limit crop susceptibility in case of adverse conditions. Examples are services to support the optimization of fungicides and irrigation water distribution, as well of services aimed at avoiding over-application of nitrogen (which increases crop susceptibility to fungal diseases and lodging).