Government urges tobacco farmers to insure their crop, as TIMB approves 4 service providers
By Insurance24
HARARE, Government says envisages a model where tobacco farmers grow out of debt and be self-reliant, thus it becomes incumbent upon the farmer to insure their crop to cushion themselves from the debilitating effects of climate change.
Acting President Constantino Chiwenga officially opening the 2018 tobacco selling season said farmers should strive to finance own critical inputs, production and marketing of their tobacco crop and be supported by insurance.
“Government envisages a model where tobacco farmers grow out of debt and be self-reliant….it is therefore incumbent upon the farmers to insure their crop to cushion themselves from the debilitating effects of climate change,” he said.
During the 2017/18 agricultural season, tobacco crop was affected by extreme weather conditions that included dry spells and heavy rains.
About 82% of the crop was financed by contracting companies. Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) chief executive officer Andrew Matibiri told Insurance24 that TIMB has approved four companies to provide insurance services to tobacco farmers to avoid possibilities of fraud by some errant insurers.
“We have four companies approved to provide insurance to tobacco farmers so we actually monitoring them so that they follow the procedures we laid down which ensure they don’t carry out such activities,” he said. (The four companies will be updated later).
He added that some of the procedures involve visiting and producing a report on the affected farmers within 48 hours.
Lately, some Insurance companies have been shortchanging tobacco farmers by entering into informal agreements with sales floor workers to sign them up without their consent.
A survey conducted by insurance 24 shows that over the years a number of tobacco farmers have been paying for insurance services which they did not sign up for and yet they do not get the services when they need them.
Meanwhile, the first bale of the season was sold at $4.90 while the highest price was at $4.99 while the lowest price was $1.34.
