eBusiness Weekly
Kudakwashe Mhundwa
Old Mutual Zimbabwe has introduced a three-phased insurance cover for small-scale farmers in an effort to ensure maximum productivity and risk reduction in the agriculture sector.
The development comes at a time when farmers are making huge losses through droughts and post-harvest losses like fire and game destruction.
Essentially, Old Mutual’s insurance unit now covers farmers whose crop is at knee level or one month-old, tussling stage (two months old) and maturity (three months). Old Mutual agronomist Nyasha Kariramombe told BusinessWeekly that there is a need to provide insurance cover for small-scale farmers to improve on the country’s food security levels. Small-scale farmers constitute a very big chunk of Zimbabwe’s population.
“Old Mutual has introduced a short term insurance cover for small holder farmers, starting from last year, with a strong intention of improving productivity levels. Farmers are now shielded from weather vulgarities such as drought, El Nino, La Nina, pests and fall armyworm among other threats to crops.
“We do a 30 percent cover when crops are between planting and around month old, then a 60 percent cover for crops at tussling level then 100 percent for crops that fail when they are almost at maturity level.
“Old Mutual ensures that farmers get something from their short term insurance for small-scale farmers,” said Kariramombe.
Old Mutual’s insurance scheme, which mainly targets rural women and some youths enables them to expand economic opportunities and income from more efficient and inclusive agric-food value chains. The project will use the value chain approach involving private sector in value chain development, which links farmers to value chains that allow for higher income and better livelihoods.
The scheme will have a supply chain development which creates a market for farmers and supply chain services relevant for income generation.
Kariramombe said small-scale farmers will work with relevant stakeholders to make the entire value chain more sustainable. This will be first scheme of its kind in Zimbabwe as most insurance firms only cover huge farmers with big assets base and who take farming as business.
But with this scheme even not so very good farmers will get something from their produce. Old Mutual said the move is intended for motivating small-scale farmers to produce more.
“We usually get small profits from this scheme but our intention is to improve farming practices and standards of living for our small-scale farmers.
“Any small-scale farmer from any corner of the country is free to join the scheme,” she said.
Meanwhile, small-scale farmers’ representative union, Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union (ZFU) executive director Paul Zakariya, said the short term insurance scheme will be a game-changer for small-scale farmers.
“All along farmers have just been farming without an insurance cover, however, with the Old Mutual scheme we expect more farmers to benefit as all beneficiaries will salvage something depending on the stage at which one’s crop was at.
“This will certainly motivate small -scale farmers to produce more knowing that there is someone covering their back in case there is an emergency like drought,” said Zakariya.
