Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or room to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
|
Session Overview |
Session | ||
THU4.4: Tackling risk in agriculture
Session organized by Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture | ||
Presentations | ||
Tackling risk in agriculture Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, Basel, Switzerland
Farmers worldwide face a wide variety of risks. These include climate and weather, pests and diseases, and natural catastrophes. These can cause fluctuations in production, which damage livelihoods and contribute to consumer price volatility. The burden of risk is particularly heavy for smallholders in developing countries. However, more solutions are becoming available. Insurance for the Rural Smallholder Farmer: Kilimo Salama Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, Switzerland
Weather-related risks like extreme or erratic rains, flood, and drought are some of the greatest challenges that rural smallholder farmers face. These farmers who have farms of five hectares or less in some of the most hard-to-reach parts of the globe are the most adversely affected by weather-related risks. They are also the most difficult to reach via traditional models of risk-management or insurance. The Kilimo Salama team recognized the unique challenge that this segment of the market posed and has built a product that specifically fills this need. Kilimo Salama’s use of technology is the key to our product’s affordability and the model’s scalability. Our 64,000 clients are farmers scattered throughout rural Kenya and Rwanda. By working through agro-vets as well as employing solar-powered weather stations and mobile payments we have dramatically reduced our administrative costs and can offer premiums that millions can finally afford. To reach these rural farmers we work with local agro-vets who sell inputs like seeds and fertilizer to surrounding farms. When a farmer purchases insurance, the agro-vet can register the purchase through a specially-developed mobile application by scanning a quick response code. At the end of each growing season our automated weather stations compare weather indices to the collected weather data, and calculate and send the insurance payout owed to client farmers via automated mobile payments. For example, a farmer can insure a bag of seeds costing the equivalent of $2 for about $.05. In case of a drought, instead of suffering a complete loss, he will receive a mobile payment equivalent to the $2 he paid for the seeds and can begin afresh at the next growing season. This presentation will outline the Kilimo Salama business model, as well as challenges we have faced in developing the product and bringing it to market. Addressing risks of water stress in farming by smallholders: examples from India Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, Switzerland Water is most vital of all essential elements of agriculture. Only a third of India’s arable land is irrigated. Fluctuations in the monsoon rains endanger crops from drought, submergence, and pests and diseases. This is reflected in year to year fluctuations in production and productivity, particularly in eastern and central India where nearly half of India’s rice crop is grown, mainly rain-fed. Majority of the projects undertaken by Syngenta Foundation in India are situated in these regions. Whereas rice provides food to small and marginal farmers, for cash income they need to grow something of a higher value e.g. vegetables and fruits. Vegetables suit small farmers well and can fetch handsome returns from holdings as small as 1/10th of a hectare, provided the farmer has some access to irrigation. Otherwise, with higher cost of inputs, growing vegetables would be a greater risk than of growing rice. Therefore, as the Foundation embarked on promotion of vegetable cultivation, it also worked towards increasing water resources for irrigation. Farmers’ groups were assisted to harness rainwater and to a lesser extent tapping ground water, using low-cost methods and devices, e.g., rejuvenating community tanks, building low-cost check dams, small rainwater ponds, land shaping, and dug wells. Farmers’ groups were also facilitated to share the use of pumps for lifting water and low-cost drip systems for enhancing water use efficiency. Farmers were also assisted to save crops from diseases and pests using scientific techniques. The paper discusses how these interventions alleviated risks and enabled farmers to successfully grow vegetables and earn decent income from collective marketing of their produce. Policies for managing volatility in staple food prices in West Africa Michigan State University
Staple food prices in West Africa, in addition to generally following predictable trends and normal seasonal variations, are frequently volatile, characterized by large and unpredictable variations that create serious problems for farmers, traders, processors, consumers, and government. Some of this volatility is “internal”, caused by structural characteristics of staple food production and markets in the region and by unpredictable and frequent changes in national trade policies. Some of the volatility is imported, reflecting the unpredictable variability in international markets, with which the West African markets have become increasingly integrated since the 1990s. Managing this volatility is a large challenge for all actors in the food system. The challenge for national policy makers is compounded by the political need to balance the interests of consumers and other stakeholders in the food system, such as farmers and traders. |