In Sub-Saharan Africa, merely 3% of 48 million smallholder farmers are insured. Characterized by owning 1 acre of land and making about $1.40 per individual per day, a smallholder farmer often manages a blend of cash crops along with subsistence or non-commercial farming; additionally, they are devoid of the financial and technical means available to larger industrial farms. As severe weather occurrences become increasingly prevalent due to climate change, a single flood or drought can trap these farmers in a relentless cycle of poverty lacking the safeguard of crop insurance.
The next section provides an update from Ethereum Foundation Fellow Benson Njuguna.
Benson is dedicated to uplifting society from an economic perspective through cutting-edge concepts powered by technology. He holds the position of Business Transformation Specialist at ACRE Africa, a microinsurance provider situated in Kenya. To learn more about the Ethereum Foundation Fellowship Program, read this blog entry.
Obstacles for Farmers: Trust and Affordability
Organizations like ACRE Africa have assisted farmers by providing risk management strategies and agricultural insurance offerings that tackle the precarious and unpredictable livelihoods that farmers endure. A significant hurdle in this arena is that farmers possess a skeptical view of insurance companies owing to a history of slow or missing payouts. They are not used to receiving essential information regarding their policies—even something as straightforward as reassurance about potential payouts for incurred losses.
At ACRE Africa, an average smallholder farmer with a half-acre plot spends approximately USD 5,perseason,forweather−indexcropi mi>nsurance(atypeofinsurancethatmakespayoutsonthebasisofpredeterminedweatherdatalikerainfall).LossesfromadverseweatherconditionsresultinapayoutofaboutUSD5, per season, for weather-index crop insurance (a type of insurance that makes payouts on the basis of predetermined weather data like rainfall). Losses from adverse weather conditions result in a payout of about USD 50, which is merely sufficient to meet agricultural inputs like seeds and fertilizers.
For insurance companies, these low premiums imply that growth is necessary to achieve break-even, let alone generate profit. Reducing expenses through digitization and automation is vital, not only for the financial sustainability of insurance firms but also to ensure that farmers can afford the insurance fees.
The Challenge: Outdated Crop Insurance Payout Mechanism
The life of every farmer in Kenya and the surrounding area is influenced by two distinct seasons: the lengthy rain season and the brief rain season. The lengthy rain season commences in April and concludes in July, while the brief rain season begins in October and wraps up in December. At the beginning of the first cycle of the lengthy rain season in April, farmers initiate their insurance purchases. To proceed, they must complete numerous forms. Once the paperwork is finalized and the insurance product is acquired, ACRE Africa supervises risk and climate conditions until the end of the season. In essence, if a weather-related incident occurs during the insured period, farmers receive payment only after the start of the subsequent season. Nonetheless, without insurance coverage, farmers would have experienced significant financial losses and faced hardships in continuing their farming activities in the next season.
The Answer: ACRE’s BIMA PIMA
An agriculturist in Embu County, Kenya is activating his insurance policy by utilizing a scratch card found in the seed bag he bought. (Thanks to Acre Africa for providing
“`this image)
The BIMA PIMA product, which directly translates to insurance in small payments, is among the latest insurance alternatives from ACRE Africa. This initiative was executed in collaboration with Etherisc, whose team has designed a decentralized insurance framework on Ethereum.
Farmers pursuing insurance with BIMA PIMA initially acquire seeds for the season from a collaborating agricultural supplier. Each seed bag contains a scratch card featuring a distinct registration code. For the trial phase, we included the cost of basic insurance within the seed price, but farmers can also opt for extra coverage using a mobile payment service (M-PESA).
Upon planting the seeds, the farmer will activate the insurance policy using SMS/USSD. During the USSD activation, their location, phone number, and all additional pertinent details from the registration code (such as crop type and coverage amount) are transmitted into the policy smart contract on the xDai chain; this procedure is referred to as triangulation and results in the instantaneous creation of a new policy. The farmer promptly receives a message notifying him/her that the policy is active.
The alternative system observes and compares actual and historical weather information which triggers claim approvals. In this case, the payout is not dependent on human evaluation, but rather on pre-established “windows” or stages throughout the farming seasons (i.e., germination, vegetation, flowering, excess rainfall). Provided that the collected weather and climate data meet the criteria set forth in the policy, the claim gets the green light; then, farmers receive payments during the current season without having to wait until its culmination, as was the method previously. Farmers will get an SMS once the policy has been activated and can verify the status of their insurance policy through a mobile device.
Our aim is to earn the confidence of every farmer by offering more pertinent information, quicker payouts, lowering costs for the insurance product, as well as establishing an audit trail for accountability.
Initial payout executed via blockchain
Earlier this year, we conducted our first payout to a farmer, Samuel, who purchased an insurance policy for maize seeds!
As of now, 511 mid-season payouts amounting to KES 75,295 (670USD),and4,021end−seasonpayouts,totalingKES309,939(670 USD), and 4,021 end-season payouts, totaling KES 309,939 (2,766 USD) have been made.
Upcoming challenges and actions
Despite this innovative system tackling existing difficulties and enhancing the current frameworks in Kenya (and shortly in Tanzania and Zambia), it has faced certain obstacles. We are still far from a completely ‘decentralized’ insurance mechanism. Payouts, for example, although technically feasible, are not entirely automated as of yet. A significant challenge continues to be improving the processing times for claims approvals. Similar to the previous payout system, claims tend to remain unresolved on someone’s desk, awaiting approval. Additionally, entities beyond our project (e.g., the insurer, the re-insurer assisting us in claims processing, and regulators) maintain their own independent systems, creating potential bottlenecks due to required manual approval processes. Looking forward, we’re committed to sharing significant information about policies with all relevant stakeholders. With direct access to a single system via tailored dashboards, we envision every stakeholder engaging with one source holding a complete audit trail.
I am optimistic that our BIMA PIMA insurance product can act as an effective model to rebuild the essential trust between farmers and insurance providers. I pursued computer sciences to assist my community and recognized early on that technology is crucial for enabling countries like Kenya to integrate into the global marketplace. I am thrilled to be part of this journey and work towards a future where millions more family farmers and billions of individuals in developing nations experience the early effects of decentralization.
We hope you’ll keep in touch with the Fellowship Program, and we would love to hear from you if you’re interested in contacting us by email at fellowship@ethereum.org. Lastly, connect with Benson on Twitter, or get in touch online to reach other Fellows, or to discover more about the program.