Market and weather-related risks pose significant challenges to smallholder producers. These risks can make production and incomes volatile from year to year, reduce food security, threaten assets and financial security, and make farmers hesitant to invest in new technologies or practices to increase long-term productivity and welfare.

Agricultural insurance has the potential to help farmers manage these risks. However, insurance markets in many developing countries are either weak or inaccessible to most smallholders. Innovative forms of agricultural insurance, such as index-based insurance (IBI), have gained attention in recent years as a way of overcoming many of the limitations of traditional forms of agricultural insurance, but questions remain regarding these tools’ effectiveness and scalability.

Since 2012, the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) has helped fund a program of action-oriented research on tools for improving smallholder farmers’ resilience to climate risks, including agricultural insurance. The work has resulted in more flexible forms of IBI, as well as an innovative Picture-Based Insurance (PBI) scheme.

This webinar will present an evaluation of how these tools have spawned further interest by academic, development, government, and private sector actors, as well as recommendations for future research on risk management.