In Kenya, Low-Cost Crop Insurance for Small Farmers
10 May 2010
A farmer in Kenya uses the mobile phone registration system
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Weather does not discriminate between large and small farms. If it rains too much or too little, crop insurance can pay for losses. Yet insurance usually costs too much for a farmer with as little as a hectare or two of land.
But now a program called Kilimo Salama, or safe farming, offers low-cost insurance in parts of Kenya. The program is offered by the Syngenta Foundation, established by the Swiss agricultural-chemical maker Syngenta. Farmers register at businesses taking part in the program and receive a policy number through their mobile phone.
Every time the farmers buy seeds, fertilizer or other inputs, they pay an extra five percent in addition to the price. This extra cost is the insurance premium. The farmers are paid back for the inputs if their crops fail because of drought or flood.
The program is designed for maize and wheat farmers like Josephat Langat. He owns a two-hectare farm near Eldoret in western Kenya.
JOSEPHAT LANGAT: "In a case where we do not have a lot of rainfall, it means we are going to lose all the crops. But this insurance policy is going to cover the farm inputs that we use in the farms, so that is going to give us the certainty of going back to the farms again if the rains do not come."
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