Agricultural technology insurance company, Pula, in partnership with World Food Program (WFP) and Nico Insurance Company Limited has disbursed about K2 Billion compensation to over 67286 smallholder farmers affected by climate change in 8 districts.
The districts included Balaka, Blantyre, Chikwawa, Nsanje, Machinga, Mangochi, Phalombe and Zomba.
Pula has reaffirmed its commitment to continue wiping tears of smallholder farmers in the country once hit by unforeseen circumstances in their faming endeavors including pests, diseases and effects of climate change.
Speaking during the 2020/2021 Crop Insurance claims payout launch on Thursday at Chilanga Primary School in Balaka district, Pula representative Jacobeth Mbano said Pula’s main goal is to caution and provide solutions to smallholders farmers against risks that are beyond their control.
Mbano said climate change is inevitable and there is always a need to be proactive and that necessitated them to come up with an insurance scheme for smallholder farmers.
“Climate change is real and in that case we also need to come up with solutions to aid farmers against that climate change. If we want our farmers to be food secure, if we want to make faming business to be profitable, it is only possible when we come up with solutions.
“As Pula we are very happy that we are offering that opportunity to the farmers to do faming as business and in the event that they experience the loses they get compensations depending on the magnitude of their loses and still get back in another growing season with a smile,” she said
In his remarks, Guest of honour during the event, Minister of Agriculture Robin Lowe said smallholder farmers in Malawi work so hard in their field but it is always sad that they yield nothing from their hard work sometimes, due to other climatic hazards.
Lowe said crop insurance has come as a sigh of relief to the smallholder farmers in the country and he further applauded the implementing partners including World Food Program, Pula and Nico Insurance Company Limited for the efforts.
“Providing crop insurance services to farmers who have been affected by climate change is very important because it helps farmers not to lose hope and it also acts as a risk transfer mechanism so that farmers do not shoulder the burden of yield loses necessitated by either pests and diseases or Climate change,” he said.
One of the beneficiaries, Anduka Matola from Chibwana Village in the area of tradional authority Amidu in the district said the funds will help her to buy food and also prepare for the growing season coming ahead.
Launched in 2015 by Rose Goslinga and Thomas Njeru, Pula designs and delivers innovative agricultural insurance and digital products to help smallholder farmers endure climate risks, improve their farming practices and bolster their incomes over time.
Through its Area Yield Index Insurance product, Pula leverages machine learning, crop cuts experiments and data points relating to weather patterns and farmer losses to build products which caters for a variety of risks including drought, excessive rainfall, pests and diseases.
