Leadway Partners AGRA to Offer Farmers Insurance Scheme
Ebere Nwoji
In its effort to boost agricultural activities across the country and attract more farmers to the system, Leadway Assurance Company Limited, has entered into partnership with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) through a $399,900 credit grant initiative to offer to farmers an insurance premium credit offer tagged , “Pay At Harvest” Insurance scheme.
AGRA is an African institution supporting inclusive agricultural transformation and sustainable food systems. The scheme is a three-year initiative, running from March 2025 to March 2028, and aims to transform the livelihoods of 21,000 smallholder farmers (SHFs) across Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Niger States.
Speaking on the partnership, Head, Agribusiness, Leadway Assurance, Mr. Fatona Ayoola said the underwriting firm entered into the partnership upon realisation that climate change continues to escalate risks for Nigerian farmers, manifesting in unpredictable rainfall, prolonged droughts, extremely high lethal temperatures and increased crop failure.
“This volatility threatens national food security/systems and undermines years of agricultural progress,” he stated.
Recognising the scale of this challenge, Ayoola said Leadway has taken a bold step forward, championing innovative risk management strategies tailored to the realities of rural agriculture.
“At the heart of the new intervention is the “Pay at Harvest” insurance scheme, an innovative premium collection model that enables farmers to defer insurance payments until after harvest, when liquidity is more assured.
The company said this approach lowered the financial barriers to insurance enrollment, increased uptake among small holder farmers and embeds resilience within the agricultural value chain.
“Pay at Harvest” empowers farmers to protect their livelihoods without upfront costs, ensuring they can bounce back from climate-related losses and secure credit, inputs, and market access with greater confidence.This new grant builds upon Leadway Assurance’s successful three-year partnership with Heifer International, under which over 60,000 smallholder farmers benefited from the “Pay at Harvest” model,” Ayoola said.
According to him, the current AGRA-funded and sponsored project goes a step further by offering a more holistic package, including access to off-takers and market linkages, extension services and climate-smart agronomy support, digital mapping of farmlands for enhanced monitoring and accountability, timely early warning systems for extreme weather events, scalable farmer education programs to promote financial literacy and climate-smart practices, and expanding public-private collaborations for unlocking innovative finance, including green climate finance, for crop insurance.
