Kenyan farmers to gain from insurance deal

By Nicholas  Waitathu

Kenya small-scale farmers will be part of one million growers in East Africa to insure their crops against effects of climate change and other related problems.

This follows the signing of two grants agreements of Sh335 million ($3.9m) by International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Syngenta Foundation for sustainable agriculture. The agreement would enable expansion of index-based insurance to small-scale farmers in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Marco Ferroni, the executive director of Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture said Sygenta has developed a product dubbed Kilimo Salama, being administered by selected insurance firms in the region.

For example, he said currently, Syngenta Foundation is offering the product in partnership with UAP Insurance, SORAS Insurance Company of Rwanda and the international reinsurer, Swiss Re Corporate Solutions. 

Ferroni was speaking during the signing ceremony at the World Bank offices in Upper Hill yesterday. In most cases farmers incur huge losses as a result of floods, landslides, failure of the crops and fire leading to famine, abject poverty and general food insecurity. 

“Our aim through this initiative is geared towards enhancing food security as well as minimising poverty among other sufferings to majority of farmers in the region,” said Ferroni.

 He said that the insurance product is accessible to all categories of farmers –small scale and large-scale farmers

Local insurance companies started offering insurance to farmers after the 2008 post-election violence where hundred thousands of lost their produce. Some of the firms offering this include CIC Insurance and UAP. 

A smallholder farmer, Reuben Biwott from Kitale confessed that the insurance product had enabled him to graduate from subsistence to commercial farming.

Fear of failure

“The insurance has given me confidence. It has transformed my attitude from subsistence farming to farming as a business. I am free of the fear of failure,” he said. Since the product was launched in 2009 some 187,000 smallscale farmers in East Africa, are undertaking it.

With the grants announced yesterday Syngenta plans to mobilise one million more farmers in the next two years.

According David Crush, IFC manager for Access to finance in Sub-Saharan Africa index insurance helps to strengthen the livelihoods of small-scale farmers, which is one of the most important tasks in the quest to fight poverty.