By Jeff Kapembwa
Lusaka–To counter the effects of climate change which has decimated global food production, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Peru and Grenada have teamed up to insure small-scale farmers against crop and business related risks and ensure food security.
Dubbed: “Lab Insurance” are experiments being undertaken in the four countries and initiated in September last year to devise countervailing and resilience measures against climatic and other related calamities likely to affect the sector.
The Pensions and Insurance Authority says the initiative was a culmination of reports from the four countries that established the grave vulnerability of small-scale farmers against their commercial counterparts that have taken up in excess of 85% agriculture risk exposures and ensure food sustainability.
“We are undertaking various experiments and physically meeting these farmers in all four countries to determine on how we can counter the various risks related to agriculture production to ensure we encourage risk free-sustainable agriculture and the best way is to encourage insuring their businesses.” Says Doreen Kambanganji, the spokeswoman for the regulator.
And Agriculture Minister Reuben Mtolo supports the initiative by the four countries noting that the climatic change and other calamities are serious and calls for stringent countervailing measures and encourages farmers to take care of their businesses while encouraging crop diversification and smart agriculture to defray losses.
Minister Mtolo disclosed that additional measures include employing more extension farmers during the 2022/23 season was underway while efforts have been stepped up to visit various small scale farmers-growing 80% of Zambia’s food for consumption and export and prepare them for the looming global crisis.
“We are in cognisant of the climate change effects and we fully support the initiative by the private sector to provide insurance to the small-scale farmers and we are ready to work with them to devise means of ensuring the country remains food secure,” he says. “By employing more extension officers, we hope we’ll have enough information to prepare against the looming food crisis,”
Zambia’s 2022/23 yield output fell 25% to 2,706,243 metric tons, from an earlier 3,620,244 metric tons attributed to the decline in the area planted from 1,687,929 hectares last season to 1,507,441 hectares. This is coupled with a reduction in yields from 2.14 metric tons per hectare last season to 1.80 metric tons per hectare during the period under review.
