Despite the growing population of small livestock and cattle in Rwanda, it has emerged that insurance in the sector remains low threatening any gains made.

Statistics show that goats increased to 2,844,001 in 2020 up from 1,891,612 from 1992 while the population of pigs grew by five-fold; from 244,980 pigs in 1992 to 1,441,077 pigs in 2020.

The number of cows rose steadily from 813,417 in 1992 to 1,449,888 in 2020.

However, since  2019 only 44,221 dairy cows, 3,020 pigs and 208,749 chickens have been insured by the scheme in which the government has invested Rwf457.3 million. Government subsidizes the cost at 40 per cent.

The low uptake of livestock insurance could threaten the farmers’ income as well as formalization of investments in the sector. .

For instance, in recent weeks, pigs were found to be under threat owing to a disease.

To drive up insurance uptake, it emerges there is still to sensitise farmers considering that very few of them have understood the role of crop and livestock insurance.

To achieve government targets to have 10 percent of livestock insured in 2021/22 fiscal year there is also a need to correct challenges experienced by users such as delays in compensation of farmers which was also found to discourage uptake.

Agriculture insurance could reduce the vulnerability of small scale farmers to the weather elements which are proving to be unpredictable especially with the effects of climate change.

However, to drive the uptake, there has to be further efforts to improve awareness on the importance of agriculture insurance.