| As a tool of managing agricultural risks, agricultural insurance should be absolutely a necessary system to develop and protect our agriculture, but, up to now, there is no law to support the development of our agricultural insurance. The legislative background of foreign agricultural insurances and the changes of agricultural insurance systems indicate that the significance of agricultural insurance legislation is beyond other general commerce legislation. The strong commonalities, externalities and commonweal of agricultural insurances and absence of agricultural insurance law have resulted in short supply and demand for agricultural insurance in China. The research purpose of the article is to provide theoretic basis and institutional frame for the legislation of our agricultural insurance law. Except for the introduction, the article is composed of 8 chapters.The second chapter discusses theoretic issues about agricultural insurance from economics and legal science. The moral hazard theory and adverse selection and welfare economic theory and agriculture protection theory prove agricultural insurance to be quasi-public goods. Our agricultural insurance law should establish agricultural insurance to be a policy and nonprofit insurance. The aim is to implement the policy goal that our government supports agriculture and country to develop.The third chapter studies macroscopically the functions and values of agricultural insurance law. The functions include criterion functions which comprise directing function, evaluating function, coercing function, educating function and social and economical functions which will be embodied in the establishment and affirmation of agricultural insurance and will push the agriculture-support policy, save agricultural insurance bargaining charges and conformation function. The values of agricultural insurance law consist of justice, ensuring agriculture to be of security and in stabilization and order. Among the values, justice is the chief value of agricultural insurance law. To ensure agriculture to be of security is the core value. To guarantee country to be in stabilization and order is the basic value. It is a complex social practice and project to achieve the values of law. So far as realizing the values of our agricultural insurance law is concerned, it needs intervention by the government and adopting legislatively the basic principles, which include nonprofit principle, government- supporting principle, and compulsive and voluntary principle. The fourth chapter introduces agricultural insurance laws of the developed countries including America, Canada, Japan and Spain and the developing countries including Philippines, India, Brazil and Cyprus,. then summaries their legislation experiences for our reference, and argues insurance law system transplantation and system innovation legislation from legislation techniques and system designs.The fifths chapter argues for the necessity and feasibility of our agricultural insurance legislation. The first section of the chapter argues for the necessity of our agricultural insurance legislation from the following four aspects: firstly, after summarizing the experiences and lessons from our agricultural insurance practices,the section gives a conclusion that our agricultural insurance legislation is inevitably needed in our agricultural insurance practices;secondly, our agricultural insurance legislation is of impending necessity to provide agricultural disaster relief; thirdly, as a part of our country safeguard net, agricultural insurance legal system can satisfy the peasant's psychological security needs; finally, after joining in WTO, our agricultural insurance legislation is a responding strategy to protect agriculture. The second section of the chapter argues for the feasibility of our agricultural insurance legislation from the three aspects: firstly, national economic basis can ensure agricultural insurance law to be put into execution efficiently. Secondly, the social solidarity thoughts have philosophically founded on our agricultural insurance legislation. Thirdly, the advances of our agricultural insurance have furnished feasibility with our agricultural insurance legislation from academic and institutional stratums.The sixth chapter provides agricultural insurance modes to be chosen for our agricultural insurance law after discussing the characteristics of foreign agricultural insurance modes and the experiences and lessons from exploring our agricultural insurance modes recently. Our agricultural insurance law should choose a top-down agricultural insurance mode dominated by the government. That is to say, the national agricultural insurance company will take full responsibility for the countrywide agricultural insurance managements and reinsurance will be established by the Ministry of Agriculture. As a wholly state-owned company, the national agricultural insurance company should set up national, provincial and county agricultural insurance organs. Generally, national agricultural insurance will not directly deal in agricultural insurance, county agricultural insurance organs will be in direct charge of agricultural insurance.The seventh chapter designs our agricultural insurance dealing legislation. The chapter makes some material suggestions for agricultural insurance legislation from the respects of dealing scopes, agricultural insurance risks, agricultural insurance sorts and agricultural reinsurance.The eighth chapter discusses the obligations of parties in agricultural insurance contracts. Agricultural insurance contracts which determine the obligations and rights of parties are the core of agricultural insurance law. The law should explicitly ordain the representations and other obligations of policy holders and explain obligations of underwriters.The ninth chapter argues that how our agricultural insurance supervisory legislation is established. Because agricultural insurance is of dense policy and strong profession, in order to prevent renting-seeking action and rent-creating action from occurring and overrunning and to guarantee policy agricultural insurance to develop sustainably, we must effectively monitor agricultural insurance. The regulatory objectives of policy agricultural insurance lie in promoting policy agricultural insurance to achieve the governmental goal of supporting agriculture and country. If CIRC will regulate both policy agricultural insurance and commercial insurance, their different Regulatory targets and ideas will result in conflicts in administering them. Our agricultural insurance law should be enacted to establish an office of agriculture risk management which is relatively independent and has sufficient authorities to regulate policy agricultural insurance in the Ministry of Agriculture. Through scientific regulatory rules, the office of agriculture risk management will insure to achieve its inherently regulatory aims which include solidity, reasonableness, fairness and security and its external purposes to promote the development of agriculture and country. |
