By Raphael Mweninguwe

The heat was intense. Animals were dying not because of diseases but because of lack of water for them to drink due to drought. Crops were drying in the fields not because they reached maturity stage but because of the heat. Farmers were hopeless and there was nothing they could do to save their livestock and crop from the drought.

And this was Salima, a district in the central region of Malawi where last growing season of 2024/2025 farmers saw their lives crumble.

“This is terrible,” said Sendeza Chapuleni, a Lead Farmer (LF), adding, “Our crops and livestock have been heavily affected and we do not know what we will do. Even with irrigation we will need water and with this drought, there is no irrigation.”

Standing in his maize field early March this year, Chapleni said he tried to apply organic manure in his farm so that rainwater do not all disappear when drought comes in.

“It did help a bit but the heat was unpresented,” he said.
What Chapleni experienced early this year is what hundreds of other farmers across the country did experience: the climate crisis.

To mitigate farmers against the impact of climate change a number of climate smart agricultural (CSA) activities have been tried are being implemented by some farmers. They include organic fertilizers application, mulching crops, pit planting, conservation agriculture, water storage and planting of nitrogen fixing plants on the farm.

The adaptation of these CSA practices remain low, according to the World Bank. CSAs are also about intensive such as organic manure making.

But in 2005 a new approach in form of weather-index insurance (WII) for the farmers was piloted with funding from the World Bank and other development partners.

The aim was to cushion farmers against climate change impacts such as droughts and floods.

The project, according to Ephias Makaudze’s study, started on a high note with initial involvement of farmers who received financial support from locally based microfinance institutions.

A few years later the WII included maize and tobacco farmers who were insured for their crops. However, the WII implementation failed beyond the pilot phase and there were a number of reasons, Makaudze observed in his study.

Some of the reasons that made the project fail to achieve its results included low demand for WII, poor return on investment, premiums are too costly, lack of an effective and reliable index-based weather insurance, timely contracts and lack of high quality data weather station networks, and unavailability of an enabling legal and regulatory framework necessary for the expansion of the pilot programme.

But this is not the end of the story on insurance payouts. In 2024 Malawi experienced a drop in crop yields due to drought and floods in the northern region and southern region respectively.

As a result the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Adaptation Fund, spent MK 2.2 billion (US$1.3 million) in insurance payouts to over 36,000 farming households in Malawi, according to the UN agency.

These crop insurance payouts that were not indexed based aimed at supporting farmers whose crops suffered damage due to climate-induced shocks during the 2023/2024 growing season.

The former Minister of Agriculture, Sam Kawale, said farmers are on the frontline facing climate shocks. He said crop insurance payouts provide a risk transfer mechanism offering financial security through compensation for crop losses, thus ensuring that farmers recover and continue farming despite facing these adverse conditions.

WFP believes that the climate crisis is impacting many farmers who bear the brunt of its effects. It says the crop insurance payouts are not only critical in providing immediate relief, but they are also important steps towards building long-term climate resilience.

In July 2025 the Government of Malawi received an insurance payout from the African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group to the sum of US$3.4 million to protect itself against drought.

The funds was meant to scale up social protection measures through food distribution and cash transfers to over 311 000 beneficiaries.

It was also meant to support livelihood-enhancing options by providing drought-tolerant crops for replanting and inputs for winter cropping for farmers.

Malawi’s national disaster insurance is aimed at building the country’s resilience to climate change.

The primary goal is to protect the livelihoods of vulnerable populations, particularly smallholder farmers, and safeguard the nation’s overall development, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB)’s Africa Disaster Risk Financing Programme Multi-Donor Trust Fund.

Dr. Robert Kafakoma, an expert on climate change, said the crop insurance payout covers are very important and are of help to farmers as well as financial loan providers in the country.

Success of insurance payouts:
With a lot of money that government received this year in insurance payouts, Malawi should not have been grappling with hunger.

An estimated 5 million Malawians are currently starving and yet the country has been implementing these insurance payouts without any success to end the hunger crisis.

Some of the farmers are of the view that the insurance payouts are either poorly targeted or misused by those who are benefiting from them.

Geruazio Mumba, a LF in Salima whose crops were heavily affected by the drought said not all affected farmers benefits from the insurance programme.

“The problem is poor targeting. Some of the so called farmers who get financial support from government programmes do not have even a small piece of land on which to grow crops. Giving such people inputs such as seed and fertilizers is a waste because they do not have land to use and they end up selling the inputs,” said Mumba.

Wikinala Basikolo, another LF said insurances are good and they can really help the country mitigate the impacts of climate change but the problem is on programme implementation.

“When you look at the social cash transfers or those benefiting from subsidized farm inputs that are coming from insurance companies to government are the very same beneficiaries getting it year in, year out. And then you asked yourself why are the very same people benefiting? Are they the only ones impacted by climate change? Asked Basikolo.

Basikolo said food insecurity in Malawi cannot end because there is a lot of “corruption within the agriculture sector and most of those implementing these programmes are getting rich at the expense of the poor.”

Arnold Namanja, Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture admits that insurance have nit make significant gains as expected.

“While progress in terms of numbers has been modest and the overall impact of insurance remains relatively small, the initiative has demonstrated potential. With improved outreach, stronger partnerships, and integration into broader resilience and food security strategies, there is significant room to expand coverage and deepen impact,” he said.

Way forward
While insurance payouts are necessary to protect farmers against climate crisis, more need to be done for it to make meaningful achievements. With the US$3.4 million insurance pay to government, this country would have averted the sufferings of millions of people currently starving.

A proper strategy is required to ensure success of the insurance payouts programmes.

“This can easily and effectively be done if weather-based crop insurance contracts are issued to farmers. The contracts need to be designed in such a way that they allow compensation of the affected farmers when rainfall during a crop growing cycle is not sufficient for farmers to grow and to optimise their yields,” said Robert.

He explained that the contracts would ensure that only the affected farmers are compensated.

“The proceeds from the insurance the government got is for everyone and it may be that the affected farmers may not necessarily be the one benefiting from the insurance,” he said.

But insurances may not be the only solutions to the problems created by droughts and floods. There are many means that can help the country mitigate the impacts of climate change, other than insurance covers.

“Most of these means are tested and are being implemented. What is required is the emphasis, promotion and political will to change the way things are done,” said Kafakoma.

He said these include community based disaster risk management initiatives; capacity building of the community in disaster risk management; food nutrition and security initiatives; sustainable catchment management and wetland management initiatives, pond aquaculture and water harvesting; and forest management related initiatives.

“As insurance is one piece of the puzzle and a financial buffer, but lasting food security requires combining it with preventive measures (CSA, irrigation, early warning), adaptive livelihoods, and policy reforms. Otherwise, payouts will remain emergency stopgaps while hunger continues to grow,” said Namanja.

The ADB’s Principal Country Economist, Albert Mafusire, said insurance payout claims provide direct financial support to smallholder farmers to help off-set losses resulting from weather-related challenges such as droughts and floods.

These initiatives are part of a broader resilience strategy aimed at building sustainable agricultural systems and supporting Malawi’s food security and if effectively implemented they could benefit smallholder farmers like Chapuleni who is still worried of another drought this growing season.

The Maravi Post