The _Mexican Catastrophe Climate Contingency Insurance Program_ ( _CADENA_ ) is a state level program managed by the Ministry of Agriculture (SAGARPA) that was launched in 2003 to provide state governments with co-funding for assisting farmers after a natural disaster or to provide a subsidy for the state government to purchase insurance (mainly index-based contracts) in order to have enough fiscal resources to respond ex-post. In other words, payouts go to the federal and/or the state government (the policyholders) in case of an occurrence of a covered event, which in turn provide assistance to farmers in the form of a pre-agreed lump sum amount per farm. The intended beneficiaries of the _CADENA_ insurance programs are crop and livestock producers without public or private agricultural insurance and who own and/or cultivate up to 20 hectares of seasonal crops or up to 10 hectares of perennial fruit crops, for the case of crop farmers. These caps apply throughout Mexico and are reviewed on a regular basis. However, the limits for seasonal crops have never been less than 10 hectares (that was the cap between 2010 and 2012), or less than 5 hectares for perennial fruit crops. In all likelihood, these eligibility criteria comprise many vulnerable families.<sup>28</sup> Survey information coming from a random sample of _CADENA_ beneficiaries (specifically from a beneficiary census of 2012) affected by various disasters in 2011-12<sup>29</sup> show that more than three quarters declared to perceive a monthly income of less than $4000 pesos, roughly equivalent to the US$10 a day upper bound of vulnerable group according to our definition (See Table 5). The survey results also tend to confirm that the _CADENA_ components are targeting and reaching the intended beneficiaries: in the case of crops, almost 100% of the surveyed beneficiaries were within the eligibility criteria (cultivating less than 20 Ha of rainfed annual crops). Of course, these surveys do not capture producers that may have been excluded due to poor targeting.

**Table 5.** CADENA **Beneficiaries Average Monthly Income, 2012**

||**< $1000**<br><US$2.5|**$1001 - $2000**<br>~US$2.5-US$5|**$2001 - $3000**<br>~US$5-US$7.7|**$3001 - $4000**<br>~US$7.7-US$10.2|**> $4000**<br>~>US$10.2|**N/R**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**State & Disaster Record Number**|||||||
|Chiapas(300598)|7.63%|49.62%|22.14%|0.76%|0.00%|19.85%|
|Chihuahua(300580)|33.37%|32.13%|9.34%|6.29%|1.72%|17.16%|
|Guanajuato(300591)|21.16%|23.18%|25.20%|13.44%|9.85%|7.17%|
|Nayarit(300755)|46.94%|38.78%|3.67%|0.00%|0.00%|10.61%|
|Veracruz(300595)|5.50%|41.00%|19.00%|12.50%|7.00%|15.00%|
|Veracruz(300609)|8.82%|35.29%|14.71%|11.76%|5.88%|23.53%|
|Zacatecas(300745)|7.63%|36.83%|30.34%|5.53%|3.63%|16.03%|
|Total|**23.34%**|**32.22%**|**18.30%**|**7.96%**|**4.58%**|**13.59**|

_Source:_ de la Fuente and Giné (2015). N/R: No Response.

> 28 Three quarters (76%) of farms across Mexico are subsistence or for personal consumption and have less than 5 hectares.

> 29 Since 2003, SAGARPA has contracted the Autonomous University of Chapingo to conduct various independent monitoring and evaluation exercises of the effectiveness of _CADENA_ , including the extent to which the targeted farmers are benefitting from the payouts provided.

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