Workshop participants brainstorm agric insurance in Africa
An Agriculture and climate insurance workshop has been held to share knowledge and experience on what is needed to develop and scale up the agriculture insurance market in Ghana and the entire West African region.
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The workshop brought together key agriculture insurance industry stakeholders, finance institutions, government agencies, multilateral institutions and farmer representatives from all over Africa.
The three-day event, which commenced last Wednesday, July 10, and ended last Friday, July 12, also touched on agriculture insurance solutions that had the potential to transform the agriculture insurance landscape in the region.
Workshop
It was organised by the African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re) in partnership with International Finance Corporation (IFC). Some of the suggested solutions focused on the use of technology in farming; research, capacity building; government scaling up its interest in agriculture, expansion of the agriculture market and changing the negative narrative of agriculture.
Others included increased investments in agriculture insurance to spur sustainable and profitable growth and policies.
Participants were taken through animals, crops identification for insurance, aquaculture operations, monitoring, evaluation, doing due diligence, data collection, record keeping, digital inclusion in agriculture insurance, risk monitoring, documentation among others.
Pillar
The Deputy Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Africa Re, Ken Aghoghovbia, said agriculture remained a pillar of Africa’s economy and critical to the continent's quest for economic prosperity.
"Statista.com reports that in 2022 agriculture accounted for around 17 per cent of the GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa with per-country agriculture-related GDP figures ranging from 1.6 per cent in Libya to 19.57 per cent in Ghana, and 60.45 per cent in Sierra Leone," he said.
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"These challenges have stifled the sector’s productivity, threatened food security and reduced the pace of the continent’s economic development," he stated.
Africa’s fortune, development
Consequently, Mr Aghoghovbia asserted that agriculture insurance held a great promise in turning around the fortunes of Africa’s agriculture sector.
"Despite the demonstrated contribution of agriculture insurance to the development of the agriculture sector, adoption of agriculture insurance programmes in Africa is still very low.”
“Out of the $46 billion global agriculture insurance market, agriculture insurance premiums originating from Africa account for only $400 million.”
"This dismal performance is attributed to several factors including the limited pool of agriculture underwriting expertise, and low adoption of digital solutions that could improve the uptake of agriculture insurance," he said.
Mr Aghoghovbia continued, "To reverse this trend, Africa Re is committed to engaging with key stakeholders from both the public and private sectors. We need to develop a profitable and sustainable agriculture insurance market in Africa," he said.
For his part, the acting Commissioner of Insurance, Ghana, Michael Andoh, urged insurance companies to put in measures that would bring down agricultural insurance premiums to make it affordable for farmers in the sub-region, stressing that most of them were small-scale farmers.
“I request that Africa Re brings on more of such workshops and training sessions to deepen technical expertise in agricultural insurance in the sub-region,” Mr Andoh said.