Agritask, global developer of a holistic agronomic operations platform, in collaboration with Royal Exchange, Nigerias premier insurance group, has launched a joint initiative digitising crop and livestock insurance with a social KPI to underwrite one million small holder farmers by 2025
The initiative involves a variety of stakeholders in the agricultural sector and beyond, including banks, cooperatives, ag-consultants, input distributors, ag-buyers etc.
The agricultural insurance penetration levels remain very modest in developing countries. In particular, uninsured smallholder farmers can be severely impacted by variable forces of nature, with little financial means to manage such risks. This protection gap may potentially amplify poverty, hunger, enhance various forms of inequalities within societies and ultimately introduce a burden on the economy and challenge the stability of the country.
Sustainable risk mitigation mechanisms and advanced technologies are required to tackle the preceding obstacles.
Towards the accomplishment of such an objective, Royal Exchange and Agritask embarked on a project to create a solid foundation for digital crop-insurance framework in Nigeria by utilizing Agritask's well-structured and accurate data infrastructure facility.
The infrastructure is capable of combining diverse sources of data on one platform in an unprecedented resolution, including the mapping of farmers, their field locations, crop types, weather, soil and topography, among others. This foundations allow for accurate risk modeling and the design and pricing of suitable insurance policies.
Importantly, the data infrastructure, once in place, can be utilized by a number pf stakeholders. After seeing the initial results, those in the Nigerian agricultural ecosystem such as banks, cooperatives and input distributors expressed an interest to participate in the project. Building on one database, each stakeholder can have customised tools tailoring to their positioning in the ecosystem.