Source: World Bank Group Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF)

In April/May 2019, the World Bank Group, through the Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) opened a competition for an Agriculture InsureTech Innovation Challenge to identify most promising entrepreneurs who are using technology to address challenges in providing agricultural insurance to farmers in South and South-East Asia. The challenge received 105 applications from over 15 countries in the region. Through a jury process, 24 innovations were selected to participate in an Agri Insuretech Forum that took place in Mumbai on July 8th and 9th, 2019. At the forum, the GIIF and partners announced 9 finalists most promising entrepreneurs whose technological solutions on agricultural insurance are more effective and sustainable for farmers. The finalists won a total cash award valued at $270,000. The awards were given under three categories of an insurance product’s lifecycle;

Data and Analytics

1^st Stellaps, India

Stellaps aims to improve the productivity of cattle and maximize the herd performance with mooOnTM wearable device and cattle herd management mobile application mooOnTM. mooON device is a pedometer for cattle which detects heat and various disorders based on their activities and their resting behaviour. mooON app is a cattle herd management application which gives recommendations to optimize herd performance. The data can be utilized for designing insurance products.

2^nd MoooFarm, India

MoooFarm is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered e-platform with a mobile app which sends real-time alerts to farmers and each cattle health, breeding cycle productivity and dairy farm performance to data aggregators. MoooFarm collects geography-specific, breed-specific big data analytics about cattle health, breeding cycle, vaccination, yield etc. Based on this platform yield and mortality based insurance solution can be designed and implemented.

3^rd Niruthi, India

Niruthi uses CropSnap, a novel and scalable technology which convert images taken from mobile into geo-tagged information such as cropping pattern, crop condition and crop yields. This platform is fully cloud-integrated analytics technology provides not only estimates of current crop conditions but also provides near-real-time photographic evidence. This also provides historical weather data that can be used to estimate risk for weather index-based insurance.

Sales and Distribution

1^st ICT 4 Agri, Nepal

ICT 4 Agri is a mobile phone-based information platform designed for small farmers was presented. This platform is active in rural areas of Nepal. The platform is called KrishiGuru which provides precise and localized information on climate-smart crop advisory, information on farm inputs, and market price through SMS and social media channels to enrollee farmers. This platform works with Nepal’s largest tele-company. The innovator claimed that over 400,000 farmers are already part of this platform. The company is in the process of integrating banks and insurance companies to soon provide banking and insurance to financially excluded smallholder farmers.

2^nd Hara, Indonesia

HARA is a digital platform from Indonesia connecting smallholder farmers with banks, insurance companies, farm input provider by data exchange. Through this cloud-based platform, farmers are incentivized for providing farm-specific data throughout the production process. This information is shared with banks for designing loan products and with insurance companies for customization of insurance product for small landholder farmers. Currently, Hara is engaged with 22,000 farmers, 477 farm input providers companies and around 15 financial instructions.

3^rd HF-MLOG, China

HF-MLOG is a metrological big data company jointly established by Huafeng group under China Metrological Administration and MLOG group. The company provides a big data platform connecting farmers with insurance companies. The company has established cooperative relationships with more than ten major insurance companies in China and has designed more than 70 index insurance products. Recently HF-MLOG has also included remote sensing technology-based inputs for loss assessment and claims payout with a significant reduction in overall basis risk.

Premium and Claims

1^st Gramcover, India

Gramcover has built a digital insurance platform expanding access to crop, livestock, asset, health, motor and life insurance product for rural populations. The technology platform supports products of multiple insurers and has customized payment collection platform. The platform has 160,000 farmer customers. The platform is being utilized on a pilot basis in PMFBY – flagship crop insurance scheme of Government of India.

2^nd Coastal Aquaculture Research Institute/FarmMOJO, India

Coastal Aquaculture Research Institute’s’ AI-based farm advisor mobile app “Farm MOJO” seeks to help shrimp farmer in increasing productivity. This app is specifically designed to support shrimp aqua-culture activities in India. The app is based on crowdsourcing approach and records production data, water quality parameters, feed inputs and health status of the shrimp farms. It also provides advisory based on AI technology. This app enables a farmer to connect with others component of the shrimp supply chain. This platform provides transparent data exchange with banks and insurance companies for loan products and settlement of insurance payouts.

3^rd Dhwani RIS, India

Dhwani RIS has a rural information system which provides sector agnostic tailor-made IT solution. Dhwani RIS works with donor organizations, Impact investment firms, NGO and M&E consultancies to design demand-based apps for process mapping, need assessment, capacity building, data integration for a project. Dhwani RIS presented a digital platform for the entire agriculture value chain which is based on AI and cloud technology. This platform comprised of automated data generation, monitoring and tracking, early warning systems/farm advisories, automated SMS alert, Crop geo fencing. This platform allows data sharing with all the stakeholders involve in agri-value chain ranging from farm inputs provider, farmer, bank, insurer and purchaser.