Some ninety farmers in the Northern Region who insured their farms with the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP) have been paid insurance claims as compensation for crop losses due to drought.

The beneficiaries, who were made up of 85 maize and five soyabean farmers, were given monetary packages as a payoff for the shortfall in rains which affected a total of 115 acres under cultivation this season.

GAIP, in partnership with USAID/ADVANCE, provides crop insurance for smallholder farmers as well as commercial farmers for maize and soybean farmers, and other insurance covers for livestock and poultry.

Alhaji Ali Muhammad Katu, General Director of GAIP speaking at a ceremony in Tibali, a farming community in the Savelugu Municipality, explained that the payments were triggered following a dry spell of no rainfall for about 20 or 21 days during the middle of the season which affected the crops.

He said USAID/Ghana’s agricultural value chain development project called ADVANCE introduced farmers to the GAIP drought weather index crop insurance, and 279 farmers purchased it for their fields.

Mr Katu said GAIP had sold insurance policies to 429 maize and soybean smallholder farmers to cover 942 acres this year.

Ms Catherine Phiri, USAID/ ADVANCE Project Director for Northern Ghana, said GAIP in collaboration with USAID/ADVANCE was working to reduce the financial risk of crop failure due to drought in northern Ghana through the introduction of a drought-index insurance scheme.

She explained that the drought-index insurance was a risk-reduction mechanism that works on the basis of rainfall measured at weather stations operated by the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet).

Ms Phiri said the scheme aims at protecting farmers, agro processors, rural and financial institutions, input dealers and others in the event of crop failure due to droughts.

Mr Yakubu Abdul Rahim, Secretary of the Zeebinyera Farmers Association, lauded the insurance initiative saying and said it had a lot of benefits.

GNA