ISF supports expansion of agriculture insurance in Ethiopia

By Henry Gale

June 13 - (The Insurer) - The InsuResilience Solutions Fund (ISF) said it would support the expansion of an insurance scheme in Ethiopia to cover two million farmers.

The initiative, led by agricultural insurtech Pula in partnership with Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture and the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Initiative, embeds the insurance within the country's Input Voucher System (IVS). Farmers receive coverage automatically when purchasing fertiliser, with the insurance costing $6 per bag of fertiliser.

It uses an area yield index, triggering payouts of up to 3,500 birr ($64) if the average crop yield in a geographic area drops below a certain threshold.

A pilot stage in the Amhara region covered 123,000 smallholder farmers. The project aims to scale coverage to 2,000,000 farmers across the Oromia, Amhara, SNNP, and Tigray regions. Key crops covered include teff, wheat, maize, and barley.