KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The Ministry of Agriculture has allotted J$7.5 million (One Jamaica greenback=US$0.008 cents) to help no less than 5,000 farmers to get on the GK Climate Defend insurance coverage coverage.
The transfer comes because the nation prepares for the June 1 begin of the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season.
“We’re going to focus on the areas that we all know usually have disasters. So, a few of them already come to thoughts like Bathroom Gap [in Clarendon], when anytime we’ve got any rain, that vegetable belt has a catastrophe,” stated Agriculture Minister Floyd Inexperienced.
“The Ministry goes to pay your base. So, what it means is, we pays so that you can enroll… and the bottom is like perhaps $3,000 or $3,500, however you may then high it up so to get a much bigger payout,” he stated.
Inexperienced was addressing a Publish-Sectoral Discuss Present and Dialogue on Wednesday within the Company Space.
He emphasised the significance of getting insurance coverage in place within the occasion of disasters, because it permits farmers to rebound extra shortly and capitalize on the availability deficit that usually happens after a big climate occasion.
He’s encouraging farmers to reap the benefits of the GK Climate Defend insurance coverage coverage that’s out there for added safety within the occasion of wind, rain, or drought.
The Agriculture Minister acknowledged that whereas the Ministry will help farmers within the occasion of a catastrophe, GK Climate Defend, offered by the GK Common Insurance coverage Firm, will present a payout primarily based on the premium paid by farmers and the climate parameters.
“So, we’ve got with GK a parametric insurance coverage. What it means [is] your insurance coverage is tied to how a lot you pay as your premium and tied to the climate occasion that comes. So, when you hit the edge, as soon as the wind passes a sure [level], as soon as the rain passes a certain quantity [it] is an automated payout,” Inexperienced defined.
He identified that earlier makes an attempt to implement climate insurance coverage for farmers had been made. Nonetheless, they’d fallen quick as a result of tedious means of valuations or the payout not assembly expectations.
He famous that with the present insurance coverage product, “no one involves look if in case you have a loss or not as a result of it isn’t primarily based on that. It’s simply primarily based on thresholds, and it’s a two-week turnaround in money, not in seeds or something like that”.
Inexperienced famous that 387 farmers benefited from insurance coverage payouts from varied climate occasions final 12 months and urged different farmers to join the profit.
The 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season runs till November 30.
