World Bank Trains Farmers On Risk Management

The World Bank training in agriculture risk management for institutions in Nigeria and Anglophone West African countries ended in Accra, Ghana with the participants identifying opportunities they could tap into and develop financial products that would help them limit impact of bad weather on farmers.

The training was aimed at building capacity of the institutions with the knowledge and skills required to design, price and implement agricultural index based weather insurance programme.

Malawi, Kenya, Ethiopia and Barkina Faso are some African countries piloting  index based weather risk management programme while Ghana would soon run a pilot agricultural insurance scheme with the support of German Technical Cooperation.

A Senor economist of the agricultural risk management team, Carlos Arce said that by sharing knowledge on index based weather insurance with the West African Insurance Sector, the World Bank aims to improve the risk management capabilities of stakeholders in Africa working within agricultural supply chains.

He explained that weather posed a major risk to productivity and profit of farmers, making it difficult for them to boost production and enhance earning.

“Be it floods or draught, particularly where they are severe, it could become catastrophic to the farmers” Arce said.

He, however, said that agricultural insurance was not enough to solve the problem facing the agriculture sector.

The agricultural expert noted that it was important to provide farmers with good agricultural practices and services that allowed them to improve productivity and to mitigate their risk.

About 50 participants from Insurance Companies, Agricultural Colleges National Meteorological departments and national insurance regulators from Ghana, Nigeria, Cambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone attended the training.