The Blockchain is becoming a big industry disrupter that cannot be ignored by even the staunchest of critics. One of the industries being impacted by the Blockchain in a major way is agriculture.
A November 15 announcement by the Chainlink community program revealed the launch of a low-cost decentralized insurance facility between Etherisc, a decentralized Insurance protocol, and ACRE Africa, a microfinance insurer focused on projects in Africa.
The project is aimed at providing affordable insurance coverage for the nearly 250,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya. The fund according to Chainlink will be facilitated by a Blockchain-based insurance platform that will help provide cover to the thousands of farmers who are at risk of ruin if climate change projections become a reality.
The planned Blockchain platform will also provide insurance covers with payment installments valued as low as 50 cents in local currencies. The monies made available by the deal between Etherisc and ACRE Fund will be used to finance several aspects of the project such as developing smart contracts, building a user-friendly front-end for farmers to interact with, integrating with local payment solutions as well as various other technical developments.
A part of the funds will also go to research that will help determine sustainable models of coverage to smallholder farmers. ACRE Africa CEO George Kuria was delighted in the development and expressed excitement for the future.
“We’re excited to be able to further our work with farmers in East Africa by receiving support through the Chainlink Community grant to help build out and implement a more reliable and cost-effective model for crop insurance with the collaboration of Etherisc,”
The ACRE Africa project is part of a wider trend growing in Africa as interest in Blockchain, as well as cryptocurrencies, begins to spread. Countries like Nigeria are seeing industry professionals discuss the potential impact of incorporating Blockchain into their industries. South Africa on the other hand has lots of crypto holders and already 6 Bitcoin ATMs in place. If all goes as expected, this technology will be incorporated into more industries across the developing world.
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