While drought policy raises many complex emotional, political and policy issues, it can be helpful to think of it as an insurance problem: how can we best help farmers manage climate risk?

Drought insurance has been a long-standing goal and it’s easy to understand why. If viable, drought insurance markets could help farmers manage climate risk without the costs and potential side effects of government drought support.

Unfortunately, technical problems have hampered the development of drought insurance markets in Australia to date. However, there is hope that with improvements in technology and better data these problems could be solved, paving the way for a new generation of weather-based insurance products.

Read more at The Conversation.