insurance

This report highlights the current status and future development of agricultural insurance for smallholder farmers around the world. ISF’s agricultural insurance landscape assessment paints a picture of an industry that shows great potential but is struggling to achieve the required scale and product-level refinements to graduate from the donor funding that has carried it to this point. »

This report summarises findings on index-based livestock insurance (IBLI), a donor-funded programme aimed at designing, developing and implementing market-mediated, index-based insurance products to protect livestock keepers, particularly in the drought-prone arid and semi-arid lands. As a drought safety net, IBLI was fairly effective at protecting beneficiary households in northern Kenya against the worst effects of drought. »

This paper reviews possibilities for, and experience with, credit-linked crop insurance, including different types of insurance and credit arrangements. The paper describes the main methods of linkage that are being tested or proposed, identifies the critical features of each method, and discusses the advantages and limitations for the three parties – farmers, financial service providers, and insurers. »

This blog examines the feasibility and sustainability of picture-based crop insurance. By taking regular pictures of their crops on smartphones, farmers can reliably document damage after a natural calamity and provide evidence that the crop was managed appropriately until that point. »

This article reviews factors and challenges that may explain the low uptake of index-based insurance products in Sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives of this paper are to assess and document 1) the insurance products available to farmers, 2) factors influencing farmers to purchase insurance products, 3) challenges limiting farmers accessing to insurance products and 4) opportunities that can positively enhance uptake. »

This article by Michael R. Carter, Sarah A. Janzen and Quentin Stoeffler suggests that insurance can help manage climate risk and food insecurity. If well-designed, insurance contracts can be implemented and priced at a reasonable level, despite the uncertainties that attend climate change. Evidence from the Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) index insurance project in the pastoral regions in East Africa suggest that practical difficulties can be overcome and that insurance can have the impacts that underlay the positive theoretical evaluation. »