*Corresponding author email id: dhatwaliashilpi@gmail.com Journal of Community Mobilization and Sustainable Development Vol. 17(3), July-September 2022, 969-975 Crop Insurance and Farmer’s Livelihood: A Case of PMFBY in Himachal Pradesh Pawan Kumar Sharma 1 , Shilpa 2 * and Ajit Sharma 3 1 Directorate of Extension SKUAST JAMMU Main Campus Chatha-180009, J&K 2,3 Department of Social Sciences, Dr. Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture & Forestry, Solan- 173230, Himachal Pradesh ABSTRACT Instability in production, market and other risks make agriculture a riskier enterprise thus affecting farmers’ income and food security. Under this risky scenario of agriculture enterprises, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) was introduced by the government to alleviate crop uncertainties in the interest of the country’s farmers, as part of the “One Nation-One Plan”. The present study sought to determine the impact of PMFBY on farmer’s livelihood and to identify the determinants of the adoption of the scheme. The data were collected from 120 farmers consisting of 60 beneficiaries and 60 non-beneficiaries by simple random sampling technique in the Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh. To this end, livelihood framework analysis was used. The findings of the Livelihood framework analysis illustrated that beneficiaries had a better position in social, financial and human assets status than non- beneficiaries. Findings of the study vitalize the policy towards awareness of the farmers towards the scheme, as farmers do not understand the implantation procedure of the scheme. Early claim settlement and timely payment of compensation would help to raise the adoption of the scheme. Keywords: Crop insurance, Impact, PMFBY, Livelihood framework analysis, Adoption etc. INTRODUCTION India is an agrarian economy, its agriculture sector contributes 18 per cent to the Indian GDP (Anonymous, 2020) and provides livelihood to approximately 65 per cent of the country’s population (Vani, 2019). Agriculture is also called “Gamble on the Monsoon’’ because of its dependence on monsoon and other factors such as pests, diseases, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides because these factors adversely affect production and farm income (Nagesh, 2019). Agricultural yields in India saw a decline of 4.35 and 9.75 per cent due to extreme temperature and rainfall shocks, respectively, in the past decade (Government of India, 2018). Unseasonal rainfall and hailstorms destroyed 24 million hectares of crop area between 2013 and 2015. Farmers are prone to agricultural risks which in turn not only affect their livelihood and income but also weaken the agricultural sector. Therefore, risk management in agriculture is one of the key concerns among farmers in fixing the issues of poverty and food security (Kumar et al., 2020; Rasheed and Vekatesh, 2021) reported that there is a direct correlation between agricultural risks and crop insurance policies. Crop insurance can be a better option to stabilize farm incomes by sharing the risks on premium payments and also shields farmer’s income during bad production years. Since the 1970s, the Indian Government has worked with state governments to promote crop insurance programmes. As far as the success of such insurance products in India is concerned, although India has the world’s highest coverage of farmer’s under such schemes, however, the number of uninsured farmers is also quite high. The adoption of these schemes is very low; just 4.80 per cent and 3.17 per cent in kharif and rabi seasons, respectively. There is a wide variety of reasons behind the low adoption rate including non-settlement of claims and low awareness among farmers etc.