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By Annonciata Byukusenge
Shirimpumu Jean CLAUDE wakes up at five in the morning every day. His main activity consists to take care of his animals including pigs, cows and fish in his farm located at Gihembe, a remote rural village from Gicumbi district in Northern Rwanda.
Shirimpumu is one of the farmers who engaged in the National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS) known as Tekana Urishingiwe muhinzi mworozi in 2019.
”I am a farmer for 15 years. I have pigs between 700 and 800. The 102 have insurance. I have a good testimony because two years ago two pigs died and the insurance compensated me.”
He added that to participate in Tekana helped him to cover the loss of two pigs.
“One pig had the value of four hundred thousand Rwandan Francs (400.000 Rwfrs) without insurance the loss was 800.000 Rwfrs. But the insurance compensated, because it compensates the capital not production.”
Farmers have livestock insurance participate in the NAIS mobilization
Uzabakiriho Gervais is a farmer lives in the Shangasha sector, Gicumbi district. After to understand the benefit of NAIS-Tekana urishingiwe muhinzi mworozi, he started the mobilization in his village.
“Two years ago, my sister had four cows were pregnant. Those cows died with their calves in their wombs. Before this her loss I tried to tell her how the livestock insurance is a profit to her farm, but she did not change her behavior of farming traditional.”
“After this loss I had back to her for mobilization, fortunately she changed her behavior now she has livestock insurance.”
He added that he continues to mobilize farmers with her sister, because if she had insurance, she could be compensated for four cows.
Challenges
The main challenge is mindset of farmers of farming traditional without insurance.
“Some farmers say that to have insurance for livestock is to spend money for nothing. But as farmer changed that mindset, we have to inform them how insurance compensates farmers in case of the loss. Other say that to compensate capital only is not fair.” Said Uzabakiriho.
Joseph Museruka Ntezimana is the program manager of NAIS project. He says that NAIS-Tekana is the decentralized.
“We encourage farmers to participate in the NAIS program, because in case of the loss caused by disasters or other accident for livestock, the insurance compensates farmers. This program has a support of 40% from the government.”
NAIS- Tekana Urishingiwe Muhinzi Mworozi Achievements
From 2019, 6,448,769,162 Frw has been compensated to farmers and livestock keepers (3,492,644,699 Frw to farmers and 2,956,124,463 Frw to livestock keepers, since the start of this program).
The crop farmers are 161,445. The 84,576 are men and 76,869 are women take out insurance sponsored by the governement under the ”TEKANA URISHINGIWE Muhinzi Mworozi” Program every year.
The National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS) known as Tekana Urishingiwe muhinzi mworozi implements by RAB – SPIU in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture.
