MUSIKA INSURES FARMERS’ CROPS

By Jessica Mwansa

WITH an increasingly unpredictable climate, weather index insurance is an important climate smart agriculture approach that plays a critical role in cushioning some of the key climate risks and building climate resilience of smallholder farmers, Musika Managing Director Reuben Banda has said.

Speaking to The Scoop, Mr. Banda said his organization stimulates and supports private investment in the smallholder markets.

“As an organization that stimulates and supports private investment in the smallholder and rural markets, we are working with Focus General Insurance and Mayfair Insurance Companies to provide both financial and technical support towards the development of weather index and other agricultural insurance products for the lower end of the market,” Mr. Banda said.

He said Musika had been working with local and international insurance companies and agribusiness aggregators to bring the benefits of weather index insurance to the smallholder market.

“As part of our wider support to the Ministry of Agriculture’s CASP programme, we are also instrumental in integrating weather insurance cover for smallholders accessing inputs under the programme.

“Approximately, 58,800 small-scale farmers and 80 medium-scale farmers have been insured, with an effective outreach to over 60,000 farming households. Additionally, over 50,000 farmers are being covered with life insurance via a product, which provides packaged weather-index and funeral insurance coverage together with farm inputs on credit,” he said.

He said Musika was happy to have succeeded in scaling up the agricultural insurance with many farmers country wide.

‘’This is an incredibly exciting watershed moment where we have succeeded in scaling up agricultural insurance to a level where we are working with many farmers on a self-sustainable basis. In partnership with key stakeholders in the insurance and agriculture sectors, we aim to increase the number of insured farming households to 500,000 in the next farming season,” he said.

He said farmers should not depend on rain fed agriculture but should plant crops that did not fully depend on rain.

“We hope more farmers will have their crops insured as climate change has deeply hit us and if farmers are not carefully sensitized, they might lose their crops seasonally due to floods and drought. We urge our farmers to take seriously the effects of climate change and should not mix it with superstition,” he said.