The Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP) has begun piloting a new insurance product aimed at compensating smallholder farmers for rainfall-related crop losses.
Known as the Germination Index Insurance (GII), the product uses rainfall data, rather than individual assessments of farm damage, to determine whether farmers qualify for compensation.
The pilot, currently being implemented in the Upper West and Northern regions, involves 2,000 farmers in 29 communities who have so far been sensitised to the product. Of that number, 160 farmers in five communities have been enrolled.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Insurers Association (GIA) and Acting General Manager of GAIP, Dr Kingsley Kwesi Kwabahson, explained that under the GII system, rainfall was monitored during the first 21 to 25 days after planting, a critical period for seed germination.
Speaking to The Ghanaian Times on the sidelines of a field engagement, he said data from automatic weather stations operated by the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet), the Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO), together with satellite data, were analysed against predetermined rainfall thresholds.
“Where rainfall falls below or exceeds the threshold and the conditions indicate that seeds are unlikely to germinate, an insurance payout is triggered without the need for an assessor to visit the individual farm,” he noted.
According to Dr Kwabahson, farmers would receive compensation when the specified rainfall conditions were met.
“When a farmer purchases the product and plants the seed, within 21 days of planting, if the seed does not germinate due to insufficient or excessive rainfall, the insurance is triggered and compensation is paid,” he said.
He clarified, however, that where the seed germinated within the stipulated period, the farmer would continue with the production cycle without making a claim.
Dr Kwabahson said risk assessments had been carried out as part of the initiative, including assessments of farms and educating farmers on appropriate farming practices, such as the use of quality seeds before planting.
He said about 10 insurance companies had formed a consortium to underwrite the risk and pay claims, adding that the pilot was intended to provide lessons for possible expansion nationwide.
He urged farmers to embrace agricultural insurance as a tool for managing increasing climate risks, stressing that protecting agricultural production was essential to food security and the economy.
The project, being implemented by GAIP under the GIA, is in collaboration with Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands, the University for Development Studies, TAHMO, Farmerline Ghana, GMet and other partners in Europe and Africa.
Farmerline’s MERGDATA mobile platform is being used to digitally register farmers and capture information on their demographics, farm locations and production characteristics.
The pilot also targets the Savannah and North East regions, which are among areas vulnerable to rainfall variability.
BY ABIGAIL ANNOH
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