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Weather Risk Management Services (WRMS) has received grant of €2.1 million(about ₹17 crore) from InsuResilience Solutions Fund (ISF), managed by the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management (FS) and financed by KfW Development Bank to build resilience of smallholder farmers to fight climate change through development and implementation of yield guarantee solution.
Ingen Technologies, a weather station data provider, is also part of the project, which aims to improve the resilience of 100,000 smallholder farmers in India against climate risks and incentivise smart agricultural risk management practices, as well as to scale up the yield guarantee solution for crops such as cotton, chili, paddy, wheat and potato.
Through its SecuFarm soultion, WRMS guarantees farmers a 10 per cent improvement in benchmark yields provided they follow the package of practice (PoP) shared with them on the SecuFarm app. If the actual yield is still below the benchmark yield due to any extreme weather attack or crop disease, the farmer is compensated by WRMS, in proportion to the shortfall, said Anuj Kumbhat , Founder and CEO o f the company.
This innovative concept allows incorporation of the necessary farm level risk reduction measures in the insurance product design offered by insurance companies and incentivises smart and sustainable farming practices. This, in turn, allows to offer premium discount or a higher guaranteed yield to farmers who take the necessary farm level risk management measures.
“With this new association with InsuResilience Solutions Fund, we are now ready to further ramp up our SecuFarm services to the next level and support the smallholders to our maximum extent,” Kumbhat said.
WRMS has offered SecuFarm to more than 25,000 farmers till date in 22 states including Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka among others. While in certain States, farmers are contracted directly by WRMS, in some States the company connects with farmers by partnering with farmer producer companies, agriculture input companies and local banks. In areas of several States, where farmers are battling conditions like higher soil salinity among other challenges, WRMS is assisting them to improve soil health and also promote alternative cropping mechanism, Kumbhat said.
“With support of ISF, our focus will be on reaching out to over 100,000 smallholder farmers and building digital SecuFarms to create a larger economic, social and environmental impact,” Kumbhat said.
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