climate-smart agriculture: weather data for index insurance, enhanced efficiency and improved food...

© 2014 by Adcon Telemetry GmbH

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»Climate-Smart Agriculture: Weather Data for Index Insurance, enhanced efficiency and improved food security Fin4AG, Nairobi, 2014 © 2014 by Adcon Telemetry GmbH


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» - Limited access to credit for the purchase of

- Seeds of good quality,

- Fertilizer,

- Other agrochemicals and inputs

- Limited access to markets to sell crop at adequate pricing

- Limited access to good advisory services

- Weather risks make harvest unpredictable

- But: harvest = security for credit - no secured harvest = no credit !

What are the major problems of small holder farmers?

What‘s needed? Relevant - Accurate - Real-time WEATHER DATA


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» Weather data is the key to everything:

- Seeding

- Crop Development

- Pathogen Development (consulting!!)

- Irrigation Management

- Harvesting

- Insurance / Micro-Credit through insurance coverage

WEATHER DATA


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» Weather data can help to:

- Reduce pesticide and fungicide application by 50% + more

- Reduce consumption of water and energy for irrigation

- Reduce usage of fertilizer through proper irrigation

- Increase quantity and quality of crop

- Provide neutral data for the assessment of weather risks

WEATHER DATA


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» The situation in Africa:

The average African Country operates less

automatic agro-meteorological stations than

the Agricultural University of Vienna (50)

WEATHER DATA


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» What do they all have in common?

-They start with a little pilot

-The are chronically underfunded

-There is no long-term plan

-They hardly ever go to scale

-After the project ends they fall apart

WEATHER STATION PROJECTS


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» Rural areas are perceived to be risky!

- Damage events occur frequently.

- Damage events frequently hit many farmers in large areas.

- Historic data is often missing.

- Adequate risk assessment is difficult

- Marketing in sparsely populated areas is expensive and difficult

- Individual damage assessment is expensive.

-Insurance is thus only available to large scale, high value farming operations

Why is getting insurance difficult?


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» What is Index Insurance?

-The concept dates back to the late 1940ies (Halcrow)

-Index Insurance uses indices correlated to events influencing yield, such as

- Precipitation, drought, flood, hail, hurricanes

-Events need to be monitored regionally, e.g. by a weather station

-Events within a monitored area lead to payouts, even without individual damage assessment

-Verifiable monitoring allows reinsurance, thus dispersal of risk.

Weather Index Insurance


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» - Development of proper indices that correlate well with agricultural loss is very difficult.

- Development of proper premiums and payout levels is as difficult: what‘s the right correlation between premium, payout and actual loss?

- What shall be insured? Inputs? Outputs? Both?

- How can the index be established? • Historic meteorological records are needed (~20 years)• Historic satellite images allow some approximation

- How can the index be verified?• Local weather stations in a dense network are needed• How to correlate remote data (satellite images) with ground events?

The difficulties of Index Insurance


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Kilimo Salama, Kenya (SFSA)

HARITA, Ethiopia (WFP)

Senegal (WFP)

Ghana (GIZ)

Zimbabwe (EcoFARMER)

Weather Index Insurance in Africa


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Joint project of INIFAP / SAGARPA, and COFUPRO, the Growers Organization

Network size: > 1.000 Adcon ETo stations > 300 Adcon soil moisture stations

Website: http://clima.inifap.gob.mx – all data online free of charge!

Purpose: yield prediction, disease advice, irrigation optimization

Index Insurance: since 2009 250 stations are also used for index insurance

Weather Index Insurance in Mexico


»» REFERENCES – The Who is Who of Adcon Users


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» WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

Develop a plan for the whole country

Go to scale right away

Think long term – think 15 to 20 years

Provide adequate funding for the long term

Think multi-purpose: - index insurance & micro-finance- disease and irrigation consulting- traceability for international markets- Share data with other interested parties

ACTION PLAN


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- Name a project CHAMPION

- Build a solid IT environment

- Build a solid weather station network

- Train technical staff on operation & maintenance

- Provide agronomical training to extension officers

- Distribute as much information to as many people

as possible!

ACTION PLAN


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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

climate-smart agriculture: weather data for index insurance, enhanced efficiency and improved food...

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