Primacy Underwriting Agency is developing crop simulation technology to produce yield data for underwriting after discovering the data is no longer available through the Federal Government.

The company is looking to expand its Yieldshield product used for determining crop yield loss to other areas of agriculture.

At present the product is used for wheat and sorghum crops, but Primacy Underwriting Manager Peter Book told insuranceNEWS.com.au there are plans to look at cover for grazing and crops such as barley, oats and cotton.

Yieldshield is designed to cover yield loss within the growing phase of a crop due to insufficient or excessive rainfall.

Rainfall calculations are based on the simulated crop yield at the start of the growing season and the end of the season, with the difference being used to determine if the farmer with make a loss in production or exceed forecasts.

Farmers can obtain varying levels of protection by adjusting the sum insured.

But Mr Book says before the range of crops covered by Yieldshield can happen, data on growing records needs to be collected and processed to form an index.

“We know work has been done overseas on pasture, but we are lacking those figures here and this is where governments can get involved in funding such research.”

Mr Book says while Primacy was researching development of the product, it discovered the Federal Government no longer collects yield data at the shire council level.

This has resulted in Primacy having to develop crop simulation technology to produce yield data for underwriting.

This is currently based on individual shires and the land area in the municipality is treated as one farm.

Mr Book says another development move for the product is to create indices for “micro-shires” based on one weather station and covering all farms with a certain radius of that recording point.