Kenya’s innovative agricultural micro-insurance program for smallholder farmers in Kenya wins award

14 June 2012. London. Kilimo Salama, a partnership between the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture and UAP Insurance, won the Financial Times’ award for Technology in Sustainable Finance, recognizing their groundbreaking work to provide smallholder farmers with access to insurance cover using innovative technology and approaches.

The FT’s Award for Technology in Sustainable Finance recognizes organizations and initiatives that are addressing the scarcity of essential goods and services across society and those that demonstrate leadership and innovation in addressing environmental, social and corporate governance considerations in business.

Kilimo Salama (Kiswahili for ‘safe farming’) is an innovative, pay-as-you-plant, index-based, micro-insurance program for smallholder farmers in Kenya and the first in the world to use a mobile network-based platform and on-the-ground solar weather stations to provide smallholder farmers with low-cost insurance policies.“When it comes to drought, most farmers have no choice but to simply pray for rain. And if the rains don't come, the crops don't grow. At a time of global change, Kilimo Salama is giving farmers more options so they can meet these challenges and prosper,” said Marco Ferroni, Executive Director of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. 


Kilimo Salama has seen an eventful second year marked by severe weather and explosive farmer demand for insurance to mitigate current and future weather risk. Kilimo Salama has just completed one of the largest index insurance payouts ever experienced on the continent has insured nearly 64,000 farmers for the next season. 

They are currently making plans to expand to other countries in the region beginning with Rwanda. 

 

In Kenya, small-scale farmers are particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of weather, often losing their entire investment when droughts or floods destroy their crops. Crop insurance is usually too costly for such operations. But a Swiss-based foundation is now offering low cost insurance through a program called "Kilimo Salama," or "safe farming." Cathy Majtenyi reports for VOA from the western Kenyan town of Eldoret.

Rose Goslinga, Technical Coordinator of the Agricultural Insurance Initiative, Kilimo Salama, speaks at the Power of Information: New Technologies for Philanthropy and Development conference. This conference was co-hosted by the Indigo Trust, Omidyar Network and Institute for Philanthropy. In this video, Rose talks about her work in the field of crop insurance via mobile phone.

Related:
Preliminary List of Innovative Financing Mechanisms (IFMs) for Agriculture, Food and nutrition

Farmer training videos have been produced in two more languages, Hausa and Zarma (Niger)

During a workshop in Niamey from 11 till 17 March 2012, ICRISAT has supported the translation of ten videos on Integrated Striga and Soil Fertility Management for sorghum and millet into two more languages, namely Hausa and Zarma. 

The workshop involved local radio broadcasters, researchers and representatives of farmer organizations. The video and audio files are downloadable from the Access Agriculture website. In the coming months, guidelines to support local language translations will be made available on the site.

Land tenure and international investments in agriculture

Recent literature that estimates the magnitude of land grabbing and/or explores what is driving it, how it is affecting small-scale farmers and what can be done, include “Land tenure and international investments in agriculture” (by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, 2011), “Land and power: the growing scandal surrounding the new wave of investments in land” (Bertram Zagema, 2011), “Land grabbing in Africa and the new politics of food” (Future Agricultures policy brief 41, 2011) and “The great land grab: Rush for world’s farmland threatens food security for the poor” (S. Daniel and A. Mittal, 2009). Land grabbing in Africa: a review of the impacts and policy responses (Oxfam, 2011)

Literature that presents alternatives to international land acquisitions include the “Access to land and the right to food” report (O. de Schutter, 2010), “Responding to land grabbing and promoting responsible investment in agriculture” (IFAD, 2011) and “Alternatives to land acquisitions: Agricultural investment and collaborative business models” (edited by L. Cotula and R. Leonard, 2010). Both the “Development” journal (volume 54, issue 1, 2011) and “The Journal of Peasant Studies” (volume 38, issue 2, 2011) have dedicated a special on land grabbing, and the website of the “International Conference on Global Land Grabbing” (held this year by Future Agricultures) contains articles that cover several aspects of the topic. “A historical perspective on the global land rush” (by the International Land Coalition, 2011) relates the current wave of land grabs to the past legacy of colonisation and neo-liberal reforms.

SUCCEED WITH SEEDS

A farmer field school in Tanzania experiments with new sorghum varieties.

This video is a shortened version and part of a farmer-to-farmer training video series on integrated striga and soil fertility management. The entire series will shortly be available in French and English.

Video produced by Agro-Insight under The HOPE project (ICRISAT), funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Agriculture tropicale et exploitation familiale

A première vue, il s’agit d’un ouvrage technique destiné aux enseignants et aux cadres ruraux qui accompagnent les projets agricoles en Afrique. Même s’il est riche en photographies, dessins, schémas très pédagogiques, ce livre atypique est bien plus que cela : il est la somme des connaissances acquises au contact des systèmes agricoles, la synthèse d’une longue observation des exploitations familiales qui ont fait vivre les sociétés rurales et en particulier les paysans d’Afrique noire, durant des siècles.

De manière très concrète, très pratique, l’auteur aborde des sujets aussi précis que les questions phytosanitaires, les problèmes fonciers auxquels les femmes rurales sont particulièrement confrontées, le déboisement, l’usage des engrais et la préservation des sols, les dispositifs de mise en culture. Un ouvrage de belle présentation, précis et complet, indispensable aux cultivateurs africains car il leur rend les clés de leur milieu, mais un livre qui sera apprécié aussi par ceux qui veulent comprendre ce qui se passe dans leur jardin.

Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio wins The WISE Awards 2010

Qatar Foundation and the WISE Awards International Jury have announced the Laureate of The WISE Awards for the project: The Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio (Farm FM 98.0)!

Initiated in 2009, the WISE Awards identify, monitor and promote remarkable and innovative educational projects from around the world. Their application was selected from hundreds of applications originating from 89 countries and all regions of the world. Designed to reward, showcase and support outstanding and innovative educational projects from across the world and from all educational sectors, the WISE Awards 2010 examined applications under the theme of Transforming Education: Investment, Innovation and Inclusion.

Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu

The Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio (Farm 98.0 FM)

The Smallholders Foundation, Nigeria
http://www.smallholdersfoundation.org

Photographic credits to The Smallholders Foundation

About Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu

Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a leading social entrepreneur, is Executive Director of The Smallholders Foundation, a social development organisation he founded in 2003, when he was 21. Through Smallholder Farmers Rural Radio, he develops and broadcasts daily agricultural, environmental management and market information radio programmes in the local Igbo language. He has participated in numerous international forums, is a member of many professional organisations and has won a number of awards for his work, including the YouthActionNet/Starbucks Shared Planet Youth Award 2009 and the Rolex Award for Enterprise–Young Laureates Program 2010.

The project

The Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio broadcasts educational radio programmes on crop cultivation, livestock rearing and soil management 10 hours a day in the local Igbo Language to inform and educate its 250,000 small-farmer listeners and improve their agricultural, environmental management and market access capacity.

The educational radio programmes cover erosion and flooding control, farm and household management, food safety, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, agriculture, combating malaria and farm safety. They also deal with such topics as application of fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides; rainwater harvesting; treadle pumps; and small scale irrigation management. Illiterate small farmers learn about methods for accessing hybrid seeds, reaching national and international markets, export documentation, and accessing finance and microcredit facilities. A question and answer service replies to questions sent in by farmers and allows them to share experiences with one another. 

The station also helps poor farmers by broadcasting information on basic business skills such as market research, cost-benefit analysis, business planning, opening bank accounts, and keeping accurate accounts and store records.

The programmes help smallholders decide what, when and how to produce crops, and who they should produce them for. They have access to daily commodity prices to help them decide which market to go to and when, and, thanks to information on the export process, they are already tapping into the international market. The household income of 65% of the station’s listeners has risen, and they have increased their crop output. The educational programmes have also helped reduce soil degradation and conserve wood resources.

Les exploitations familiales peuvent-elles nourrir le Sénégal ?

Le forum international co-organisé par le CNCR et la FONGS sur la question “Comment les exploitations agricoles familiales peuvent-elles nourrir le Sénégal ?” s’est tenu les 29, 30 novembre et 1er décembre 2010 à Dakar. Le Forum a vu la participation de 1037 personnes représentant diverses structures et venant de divers horizons : délégués paysans : le CNCR (Sénégal), le ROPPA et organisations paysannes soeurs (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gambie, Guinée Bissau, Bénin, Ghana, Togo, Sierra Léone, Liberia / Maghreb, Afrique Centrale) ; la société civile et le secteur privé sénégalais ; les partenaires techniques et financiers nationaux et internationaux (Sénégal, Belgique, France, Suisse, Espagne, Italie, Pays-Bas, Etats-Unis) ; etc.

Pour démarrer l’année en douceur, ci-joint une vidéo réalisée pour la FONGS par Canal C et élaboré en marge du Forum International. Un film en forme de plaidoyer qui comporte des belles images et un discours bien construit. Le forum international précédait la reunion du Comite de Gestion du PAEPARD 2-3/12, toujours a Dakar.

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Governance and Small-scale Agriculture in West Africa

8th- 10th November, 2010/ Nairobi, Kenya. Idasa’s Economic Governance Programme hosted a conference on ‘Governance and Small-scale Agriculture in West Africa’.
The aim of the conference was to discuss governance and public investment processes and how these are shaping small-scale agriculture in the region.
Specifically, the meeting focused on three themes:

1. priorities for public investment in agriculture; 
2. trends in public expenditure on small-scale agriculture; 
3. and, policy processes and stakeholder participation.

The conference provided a forum for stakeholders to identify constraints and opportunities in agriculture and draw interdisciplinary lessons and best practices.

Democratising agricultural research for food sovereignty in West Africa

Democratising agricultural research for food sovereignty in West Africa

Michel Pimbert, Boukary Barry, Anne Berson, Khanh Tran-Thanh http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/14603IIED.pdf

Published: Oct 2010 - IIED, CNOP, IRPAD, Kene Conseils, Centre Djoliba, URTEL

Areas: Mali, Africa (entire region)

Topics: Agriculture & Food, Participation

Language: English

This multimedia publication is available online only. A hardcopy version will be printed in early 2011.

This multimedia book reports on an initiative in West Africa that seeks to create safe spaces in which food providers and consumers can discuss how to build an agri-food research system that is democratic and accountable to wider society. An explicit aim of the entire process is to strengthen the voices and effectiveness of small-scale producers and other citizens in the governance of agricultural research as well as in setting strategic research priorities and validating knowledge. 

The book combines text, photos, video and audio recordings to describe the methodologies used in processes of deliberation and inclusion that involved small scale producers (farmers, pastoralists, fishermen and food processors) and holders of specialist knowledge on agricultural research. The policy recommendations that emerged out of two citizens’ juries and farmer led assessments of agricultural research are presented here along with some critical reflections on the process so far. The outcomes of these citizen deliberations have significant implications for current debates on the future of food and farming in West Africa.

Related:

Democratising agricultural research: 
An initiative that questions the often narrow interests of agricultural research. Focussing on four regions aiming to make the voices of small scale producers and other excluded citizens heard — and count — in the governance and process of agricultural research.

Making excluded voices count in food 

and agricultural policy making

http://www.excludedvoices.org/

THE JURY Farmers' reflections on the process and on their role as jury members Origins and design of the citizens' jury process - a brief history The work of the facilitators during the citizens' juries A member of the independent oversight panel assesses the process - Blandine Sankara, Burkina Faso The role of the press and other media in West Africa - before, during and after the citizens' juries See a number of videos :  http://iied.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc 01. Dr Samba Traoré, Director, Cinzana Research Station, Mali

04. Dr Amadou K. Coulibaly, Professor of Ecological Entomology, University of Mali, Katibougou

A survey of business models that provide opportunities for smallholders

Making the most of agricultural investment: A survey of business models that provide opportunities for smallholders

By Sonja Vermeulen and Lorenzo Cotula 
Published by IIED and FAO 
Website: www.iied.org/pubs 
2010, 106pp, ISBN 978 1 84369 774 9(Pb), free to download

Renewed interest in agricultural investment has led to a rise in large-scale acquisition of farmland and subsequently to heated debates over 'land-grabbing'. But little attention has been paid to alternative, and more inclusive, business models, such as contract farming schemes, joint ventures, management contracts, and new supply chain relationships. To address this gap, Making the most of agricultural investments examines a variety of business models and considers their opportunities and constraints, and options for scaling up.

According to the authors, none of the business models reviewed emerged as the best option in all circumstances for smallholder farmers, but the extent to which an investment shared value with local smallholders was usually more important. "Depending on its specific terms, contract farming may be a vehicle for providing support and improving market access for smallholders - or an exploitative relationship where smallholders are effectively providers of cheap labour, and expected to carry production risks," the authors explain.

Partnership for African Agricultural Market Information Systems

19 - 22 April 2010. FARA/Accra. ESOKO organised its second PARTNER CONFERENCE. The group of some 20 participants represented national and local MIS models, public sector and private sector models, country-wide, regional wide and value-chain focused models. 

New Partners described their projects briefly and shared short- and long-term objectives. Partners who were present during the last conference (Accra 9 - 13 March 2009) briefly discuss their projects with emphasis on achievements & challenges after the 2009 session. Each project told at what point they were in their rollout plans with details about proven solutions.The Esoko Ghana Presentation, during the second day, focused on how to make market information system (MIS) into a profitable business or sell ESOKO subscriptions to cover the cost of your MIS operations. 

The ESOKO Ghana team presented several facets of the business, including the enumeration, business development. client support and marketing. The participants discussed the revenue potential and how the franchise or MIS project can drive revenues to keep the MIS successful and growing. 

There was one session with a lively and interactive presentation of stories from Esoko users in the field. 

Two farmers (You Tube video interview forthcoming) from the SEND Foundation presented their experiences with Esoko from Northern Ghana, including project costs; Esoko set up and usage; training of users and challenges around illiteracy, and network sustainability. 

They explained how were able to increase revenues up to 40%, create more efficient use of market channels and improve adoption rates of new technologies in a rural environment.

Related blog posts: 

• 30/03/2010  
  Workshop on Agricultural Market Information
• 12/03/2009 
  Launch of new mobile phone market information system ...
• 27/07/2009 
  why m&e is crucial for mobile phone use in agriculture
• 12/03/2009 
  Monitoring the use of mobile phone for market prizes in Ghana
• 11/03/2009 
  How market information systems help privatise the Agri input ...
• 09/03/2009 
  MARKET INFORMATION SYSTEMS workshop at FARA