Importance of building data collection as farmer organisation services

By Bob Aston 

The second day of the Continental Briefing during the Fin4Ag Conference: revolutionising finance for agri-value chains, which is taking place at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies, provided participants an opportunity to deliberate on building data collection as farmer organization services.

The Session 4 on Building data collection as farmer organisation services was chaired by Philip Kiriro, President of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF), saw participants go through three case studies.

Mahamadou Oudraogo from ROPPA took participants through their experience in data collection. He gave a regional review of family farms in West Africa, adding that they are determined to improve the livelihoods of family farmers and also influencing policy at the national level.

He said they are using tools like questionnaires to collect data, which is also linked to the capacity of farmer organisations. Currently ROPPA covers the five countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The importance of local information to international business trade also came up as Enock Chikava from BUNGE Senwes International (BSI) informed participants that they have been promoting inclusive finance models for farmers in Africa.

He emphasised the importance of local information to international trade citing the case of Tanzania where they have partnered with different stakeholders to initiate maize value chain.

Esther Muiruri from Equity bank addressing participants

“Success comes through sustainable poverty reduction. Farming is the best way of raising [the] economic livelihoods of people,” said Mr. Chikava.

He said BSI believes that farmers have the ability of being equal partners when they are financially empowered. He said the importance of data to give access to agricultural insurance to small-scale farmers cannot be over emphasised as it plays an important role when farmers want to access credit facilities.

He said international traders value, critical mass, supply and demand, proximity to cross –border markets, logistics and infrastructure and political economy.

Agrotosh Mookerje, Principal Actuary at MicroEnsure, looked at the importance data to open up agricultural insurance to small-scale farmers. He touched on how agriculture insurance works, data requirements for agriculture insurance and the role of different stakeholders.

He said that MicroEnsure has been a provider of insurance to the low and middle-income market with more than 10 million active clients in 13 markets across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

He added that they have been providing a range of life, health, property and weather-index products via a range of distribution partners that include microfinance companies, banks, co-operatives and mobile network operators.

Mookerje said that they have insured close to 60,000 farmers in five (5) countries since 2013, namely Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. He added that 5, 000 farmers have also received payout.

MicroEnsure is currently offering three (3) different types of insurance, namely indemnity insurance, weather indexed insurance and area yield insurance.

Willian Ng’eno, Industrial Partnerships Manager at YARA Tanzania, shared information about one step program for small-holder farmers. He said that they are mapping data for decision-making while also training farmers on the best ways to use fertiliser.

“Data is crucial as it has to be tailor made according to what the farmers want. We are building the capacity of farmers to ensure that they are empowered and are able to access correct data,” said Ng’eno.

The continental briefing was held to address the challenges and opportunities in accessing financial services by farmer’s organisations in Africa and identify profitable opportunities for farmers engaging with finance actors.