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More farmers are insuring their produce, data shows
Insured loans under agricultural insurance grew from Shs900b in June 2021 to Shs1.38 trillion. Photo / File
What you need to know:
- Data indicates that at least 116,416 agricultural policies were written between June 2021 and June 2022
Uptake of agricultural insurance grew by 116,416 policies for the period ended June 2022, highlighting improved confidence in one of the riskiest sectors for underwriters.
Data from the Agro Consortium, which is also known as the Uganda Agriculture Insurance Scheme, indicates that the number of farmers getting insurance to protect their produce against risks increased from 259,224 in June 2021 to 375,640, which means that more farmers are now protected against insurable risks.
Other areas of growth, the data indicated, included the amount of loans under insurance and written premiums.
For instance, during the period, insured loans grew from Shs900b in June 2021 to Shs1.38 trillion while gross written premiums under agriculture increased from Shs42.9b to Shs70b.
Mr Munyaradzi Daka, the Agro Consortium technical lead, said the Uganda Agriculture Insurance Scheme, which started in July 2016, sought to support farmers by offering standardised and subsidised agriculture insurance services, as well as mitigating financial losses suffered due to natural calamities.
Specifically, he said, the scheme seeks to increase access of farmers to credit by ensuring that financial institutions are confident that they can be protected from losing their lent to the agriculture sector in case of eventualities.
The scheme also sought to identify insurable risks as well as creating packages that are affordable to farmers.
Agriculture remains one of the most risky sectors yet it is prone to a number of risks, many of which are related to nature.
