Rice Land Suitability and Insurance Premiums: A GIS-Based Multicriteria Analysis Approach for Sustainable Rice Production in Bangladesh

Rice is indeed one of the most important staple crops globally, and its production plays a crucial role in ensuring food security for a significant portion of the world’s population. The purpose of this research is to develop a land suitability model for rice production based on suitability levels and to propose insurance premiums to obtain maximum returns based on the harvest index and subsidy dependence factor for the marginal and moderately suitable lands in the northern part of Bangladesh. A multicriteria analysis was undertaken and a rice land suitability map was developed using geographical information system and analytical hierarchy process. The analysis identified that 22.74% of the area was highly suitable, while 14.86% was marginally suitable, and 28.54% was moderately suitable for rice production. However, 32.67% of the area, which was occupied by water bodies, rivers, forests, and settlements, is permanently not suitable; 1.19% is presently not suitable. If agriculture at risk, it can adversely impact livelihoods and cause food insecurity. To motivate low-quality landowners to produce rice, there is no alternative but to provide protection through crop insurance. We suggest producing rice up to marginally suitable lands to obtain support from insurance. The minimum coverage is marginal coverage (70%) to cover the production costs, while the maximum coverage is high coverage (90%) to enable a maximum return. This new crop insurance model, based on land suitability can be a coherent support for owners of different quality land to increase production.