Most urges farmers to be insured
The Malawi Oil Seed Sector Transformation (Most) has stressed the need for farmers in the country to be insured to be covered in the face of natural disasters or anything that might affect their output.
Most access to finance and business development adviser Joseph Saiti gave the advice in Blantyre last week during a workshop which brought together farmer organisations, insurance companies, banks and microfinance companies to discuss what they call inclusive insurance or rural insurance.
Saiti said to ensure sustainability of interventions to natural disasters, there was need to bring about change that will alter the way things are done in the agriculture sector by, among others, changing the way contract farming is done through use of incentives such as insurance.
“Through weather indexing input insurance and funeral expenses insurance cover, farmers have received money handouts and acquired loans as their premium can also be used as collateral,” he said.
An insurance expert working with Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM), Martin Magomero, said as a regulator, RBM is working on strengthening the systems to be preventing fraudsters from duping farmers.
According to Saiti, Most is already in contact with insurance companies so that they start providing insurance services to farmers who are willing. n
