ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) project, a World Bank programme launched in 2009 that develops financial services for smallholder farmers in developing countries. More particularly, we examine an important publication produced by the project: Risk Modeling for Appraising Named Peril Index Insurance Products: A Guide for Practitioners. Index insurance is a financial instrument whose novelty lies in the way future indemnities are determined: paying them depends on whether pre-set index values are met. Such an index can be based on, for example, information on rainfall levels or soil moisture in a given area. We examine two questions raised by the project. First, we scrutinise the practical means by which the living soil is transformed into the index, an abstract object of calculation. Second, we analyse how and why the index is used. It is revealed to be a technology which transforms local uncertainties regarding the soil, weather dynamics, and yield into financial objects. In addition, this instrument connects local economies to external resources, thus representing a systematic strategy to integrate the soil into the coordination of global financial markets.
