The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) reports that after climate-related disasters such as droughts and floods, women take longer period to recover economically due to lack of access to insurance, savings, and social protection.
It indicated that repeated droughts across Africa, including Ghana, especially between 2020 and 2023, have left millions of women and children displaced or they face food insecurity, exacerbating maternal health and nutrition challenges.
Women farmers, particularly smallholder farmers in vulnerable communities, continue to suffer systemic discrimination, contributing significantly to food insecurity and impeding inclusive economic growth.
A World Bank report in 2014 indicated that only one in 10 women farmers in Africa had access to formal credit facilities or agricultural insurance, underscoring the urgent need for more inclusive policies.
Background: Ghana’s agricultural insurance landscape
Agricultural insurance refers to financial products or interventions designed to protect farmers against losses resulting from unforeseen events such as bushfires, droughts, floods, pests’ infestations, and other diseases.
Over the years, Ghana has introduced several agricultural insurance schemes as part of efforts to mitigate the risks associated with climate change and market volatility. While these policies have provided some relieves, structural limitations have hindered their ability to adequately include vulnerable groups, especially women, who constitute a significant portion of the agricultural workforce.
For instance, in 2011, Ghana launched its flagship insurance policy, the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP), a public-private partnership providing weather-index and area-yield insurance for both smallholder and commercial farmers.
Other innovations include Index-Based Crop Insurance, which provides compensation based on weather data (such as rainfall and temperature) instead of direct field assessments. In addition, private insurers such as Star Insurance, GLICO, and SIC offer agriculture-related products including multi-peril crop, livestock, and weather index insurance.
However, these insurance packages tend to be more accessible to medium- and large-scale farmers or agribusinesses, leaving many smallholder and women farmers behind.
Gaps in agricultural insurance in Ghana
Despite these progress, key challenges persist, especially for women farmers in rural areas.
Key among them is low awareness and financial literacy among rural women, which limits their understanding and uptake of agricultural insurance.
Access to land and other productive resources, often made prerequisites for insurance eligibility, is often a major barrier. Many women farm on small plots without formal land titles, making it difficult to access adequate coverage.
Furthermore, most insurance products are linked to formal banking services, which many women lack access to, thereby restricting their ability to pay premiums or receive payouts.
High premiums are another critical challenge, making policies unaffordable for women who earn less or lack capital.
Critically, most insurance schemes are not designed with gender-specific needs in mind. They fail to account for intra-household decision-making dynamics or the dual role women play in both production and caregiving.
Real life stories of women farmers
For 25-year-old Memunatu Alhassan, who cultivates pepper on a two-acre farm in Nabela in the Yendi Municipality of the Northern Region, has never heard about agricultural insurance.
“I’ve never heard of any agricultural insurance policy,” she told the Ghana News Agency (GNA). “If I had access to one, the dry spell in 2023-2024 that destroyed my farm wouldn’t have been so devastating.”
Mr John Naabu, a farmer from Nabuli in the Gushegu Municipality, also lamented the impact of crop losses in his area.
“If we had such interventions in our community, the impact of crop failures would have been minimized,” he said.
Need for inclusive agricultural insurance policies
Mr Joseph Akanlagm, Northern Sector Area Manager at the National Insurance Commission (NIC), said inclusive agricultural insurance offers a critical safety net that enables farmers to recover from shocks and maintain production.
He emphasized the need for a comprehensive national insurance framework that inclusively targeted women and smallholder farmers to build resilience and enhance food security, poverty reduction, and sustainable development.
Hajia Musah Hawa, Northern Regional Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), said the issue of inclusive agricultural insurance policies was not just about accessibility, but also about financial literacy among vulnerable groups and the need to prudently manage the funds for sustainable farming.
Hajia Alima Sagito Saeed, Executive Director of the Savannah Women Integrated Development Agency (SWIDA-Ghana), a women’s empowerment organization in Northern Ghana, said agricultural insurance is no longer a luxury but a necessity requiring urgent attention from stakeholders.
She argued that while women make up nearly half of Ghana’s agricultural workforce, they continue to face substantial barriers to accessing insurance.
She underscored the need for policymakers to design pro-poor, gender-responsive, and climate-smart insurance schemes with affordable premiums, specifically tailored to the realities of small-scale women farmers.
Recommendations
To close the gender gap in agricultural insurance, Ghana must be deliberate and promote awareness campaigns targeted at rural women to improve understanding and uptake of agricultural insurance.
The government and other insurance companies must prioritise simplifying their eligibility criteria to decouple insurance access from formal land ownership.
They must develop mobile-based platforms for insurance access and claims, to bypass formal banking constraints to provide subsidies or premium support for vulnerable women farmers.
Equally important is the need to integrate agricultural insurance into broader rural development and climate adaptation programmes.
Inclusive agricultural insurance is not just a policy option, it is a development imperative. By protecting women farmers today, Ghana invests in a more food-secure, equitable, and climate-resilient future.
Stakeholders in the agriculture and financial sectors must up their contributions and support to women in the sector by instituting deliberate policies tailored to improving the quality of livelihoods of women farmers.
The country’s lawmakers should promote affirmative actions directed at securing space and security for women farmers in the country.
By Solomon Gumah
Source: GNA
The post Ghana needs comprehensive national insurance policy for women farmers appeared first on Ghana Business News.
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