Farmers Take Photos of Crops to Get Money for Damages

A new initiative is offering Kenyan farmers an improved way to receive compensation for their crops lost due to weather extremes, using a smartphone app where they can take pictures and track harvests and damages.

The usual insurance system, based primarily on satellite mapping, gathers general data on a large scale making it difficult to measure weather at precise local areas, so farmers could never be sure whether they would receive compensation for their damaged crops. But the new “picture-based” insurance presents a more affordable and effective solution, where photos are shared with insurance agents and researchers to accurately decide which farmers have suffered losses.

“This project is trying to combine the information collected by farmers on their smartphones with satellite data. The combined data makes it easy to determine whether a farmer gets a payout,” says Jemimah Njuki, an IDRC specialist in agriculture and environment.

Insurance developer ACRE Africa has partnered with Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research in the CAD$1.7 million project, which launched in April and enlisted farmers in the Meru, Tharaka Nithi and Embu counties. It is expected to run for three and a half years, helping 50,000 farmers along the way.

“I feel I am part of making decisions for my insurance payouts with this system that involves me in collecting data through photography,” says 41-year-old farmer Purity Nkatha from Luuma village in Meru County.