The World Bank has welcomed the government's partnership with local insurance companies in crop and livestock cover policies, saying they will benefit smallholder farmers.

Country director for Kenya, Ms Diarietou Gaye, said the programme has the potential to positively impact the country's economic development since it will help increase production as well as producer incomes.

"The large majority of the poor in Kenya are farmers and it will enable them to adopt improved production processes to help break the poverty cycle of low investment and low returns," she said.

The bank's Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Programme Manager, Mr Olivier Mahul, described the insurance cover, which will attract a 50 per cent subsidy from the government, as innovative and in line with international good practices.

"The programme introduces a state-of-the-art method of collecting crop yield data, using statistical sampling methods, GPS-tracking devices and mobile phones.

"This offers the promise of greater accuracy and transparency in the planned products that could pave the way for other large scale agricultural insurance programmes in Africa," he said.

Click here to read the full article.