Digital crop insurance framework to be established in Nigeria

Agritask, a global developer of a holistic agronomic operations platform, in collaboration with Royal Exchange General Insurance Company, an insurance group in Nigeria, announced the launch of a joint initiative digitising crop and livestock insurance with a social KPI to underwrite 1 million small holder farmers by 2025.

The initiative involves a variety of stakeholders in the agricultural sector and beyond, including banks, cooperatives, ag-consultants, input distributors, ag-buyers etc

Combining diverse sources of data on one platform

Royal Exchange and Agritask aim to create a foundation for digital crop-insurance framework in Nigeria by utilising Agritask’s data infrastructure facility. The infrastructure is capable of combining diverse sources of data on one platform, including the mapping of farmers, their field locations, crop types, weather, soil and topography, among others. This allows for accurate risk modeling and the design and pricing of suitable insurance policies.

The data infrastructure, once in place, can be utilised by a number of stakeholders. Building on one database, each stakeholder can have customised tools tailoring to their positioning in the ecosystem. This is to create new business opportunities as well as greater empowerment of smallholders, who will benefit from better reach and higher-quality products.

_{Text continues underneath image}

Small-scale farmers face the same risks and challenges large commercial operations do: Bad weather, low yields, and supply chain challenges. – Photo: AFP

Need for greater risk management abilities

“Farming in most of the world is comprised of small-scale farmers who face the very same risks and challenges large commercial operations do: Bad weather, low yields, and supply chain challenges. However, they do not have the resilience that larger commercial operations have; that’s why there is a huge need for greater risk management abilities in this segment,” said Ofir Ardon, Agritask CEO.

“Because we work with the entire ecosystem, we can provide economies of scale for growers, both at the individual farmer level, as well as for all other players in the ecosystem.”

With Agritask’s technology, we can level the playing field

“There are many regional impact projects in Nigeria, but most of them struggle to reach hundreds or thousands of farmers, simply because they do not have the technology required to manage and optimise an operation of this scale. Therefore, many times, when the project funding ends, the impact vanishes,” said Chukwuma Kalu, Head of Agribusiness & Business Development, Royal Exchange General Insurance Company Ltd.

“Working with Agritask, we have a great opportunity to develop a more sustainable model. We believe this kind of sustainability can, and should, become a reality across Africa. With Agritask’s technology, we can level the playing field and get them to operate with the same resilience as larger commercial entities.”