Crop insurance program in Rwanda uses satellites

Crop Insurance

Weather technology will be helping to support the coverage that will be provided through the government.

The government of Rwanda has now introduced a new crop insurance program for growers that is supported by satellite weather stations that will be keeping tabs on the precise impact that heavy rains and drought have on farming efforts.

The coverage is geared toward protecting and learning from small sized farms within this Central African country.

The country’s farmers have been plagued with devastating natural events such as the current drought in the south end of the country, which many weather experts are attributing to climate change. Over the last ten years, there have been considerable and measurable shifts in the region’s weather patterns. The hope is that the farms will be spared from ruin, this season, but that the crop insurance will help the farmers to recover if the extreme weather continues to take its toll.

There have been many chaCrop Insurancellenges to growing that are creating risks that crop insurance can help to mitigate.

Rainfall periods for many of the farmers in Rwanda have been irregular and quite limited, so that these growers have been facing many challenges in being able to grow their fields. At the tail end of 2012, the government partnered up with the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture and started an indexed crop insurance program for the country’s farmers.

This crop insurance program is known as “Kilimo Salama” which means “safe insurance” in Kiswahili. It was designed to be able to use satellite stations in order to monitor the amount of rainfall that various regions receive, how variable that rainfall is, and how drought may have an impact on the farms in those areas.

The government’s goal is to have many small sized farms enroll for the crop insurance coverage so that they will be able to receive compensation at the close of each growing season if they experience any losses due to extreme weather conditions. This, according to Belise Mugwaneza, a Syngenta consultant. Syngenta is an international organization that is working to help in the administration of new policies.