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Precious Manomano

WITH calls for smallholder farmers to insure crops against natural and man-made disasters growing louder by the day, agricultural experts have warned that catastrophes such as hailstorms, theft and fire coupled with weather variabilities were fast becoming major challenges to agricultural productivity.

Over the years, farmers, especially from the communal and small-scale categories have lost both crops and livestock to adverse weather and recorded heavy losses since they would not have been insured. 

These farmers obviously need safety nets in the form of insurance to protect them in the event of crop failures inspired by circumstances beyond their control. Such policies can save them from total losses, as they can just transfer the shocks to the insurer.

The farmers have always cited various reasons for not taking up insurance cover, chief among them, unfulfilled promises and insurance illiteracy.

 Zimbabwe National Farmers Union (ZNFU) president Mrs Monica Chinamasa said it was critical to scale up awareness programmes to equip farmers with knowledge on the importance of having insurance cover for crops.

She said most farmers were still sceptical when it comes to agricultural insurance, adding that insurance companies should educate farmers on the importance of their products.

“Serious education of farmers on insurance policies is needed. So far this area is lacking because smallholder farmers are not interested in the subject. There is need for insurance companies to visit farmers and explain to them how they benefit from insuring their crops. If farmers understand this, then there is a probability that more smallholder farmers take it up. We want to make sure these farmers appreciate the importance of insurance,” she said.

Tobacco Farmers’ Union Trust president Mr Victor Mariranyika said it was crucial for farmers to get insurance cover for their crops because climate change had sparked weather-related catastrophes, adding that farmers and all relevant stakeholders should prioritise insurance cover for their farming enterprises.

“Disasters in farming can happen anytime so farmers should prioritise insuring their crops. Climate change is a serious threat that is gripping the whole world and small-scale farmers are considered a high risk. Disasters can occur on the fields or during transportation so I appeal to insurance companies to improve their services so that farmers can trust them,” he said.

Small-scale farmers are credited with contributing 60 percent of the country’s agricultural throughput.

Lack of knowledge on the purpose of insurance services largely due to the low penetration of financial services in rural areas, is a key barrier to uptake of insurance. Some farmers may be aware of the existence of insurance services but lack of knowledge and understanding of financial services prevents them from immediately trusting the service providers owing to previous experiences in which someone they know, or even themselves have struggled or even failed to get a claim honoured, as stipulated in the policy. In most cases, the farmers are not able to raise the money to secure insurance policies.

They, therefore, focus their energies on mobilising basic resources such as seed, fertilisers, chemicals and sometimes labour.

Government, in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (a member of the World Bank Group) is now developing the agriculture insurance index based on insurance framework for smallholder farmers. The project commenced in early 2022, and is expected to run until June 2023. The expected project outcomes include the regulatory framework for agriculture index insurance, setting-up of knowledge exchange forums and developing capacity in agriculture index insurance, among other market development initiatives.