Farmers in developing countries often rely on variable seasonal risks such rainfall. Crop insurance protects against these risks and guarantees financial sustainability for their families. But, despite the best intentions of institutional providers, take-up and penetration rates stagnate.
As an example, there are over 1 billion people living in Africa. Yet agricultural index insurance only covers about 80,000 farmers on the continent. A single Kenya-based insurance provider accounted for a quarter of the coverage.
We join a new partnership, including the Office of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (Dubai) and the Government of the Philippines. We rethink crop insurance for smallholder farmers.
Many existing products build on incentive programs based on naive assumptions of farmers. Free agricultural training, financial education, state endorsement, and micro-lending all prove ineffective. Instead, we must value the way farmers make decisions. We leverage the systems of trust within agricultural communities to inspire social proof.
Imagine crop insurance as a social network. Our program already demonstrates promise to transform financial development in agricultural communities. By 2030, our program projects to generate USD $5.8 billion by serving 1 billion people across 22 countries.