ImpactAlpha, May 28 – A third of the world depends on agriculture to earn a living. Climate change is making these livelihoods increasingly insecure, particularly in developing countries, yet many small-scale farmers lack access to insurance that would protect their income.
“To a large extent this is a result of product design which often relies on limited data availability and visibility into the ongoing agricultural and climatic risks,” says Ofir Ardon of Agritask, a Tel Aviv-based agriculture data analytics software startup.
Agritask’s platform is designed to help agriculture businesses, from farmers to insurers, improve how they use data to make business decisions. Most of its current users are in emerging and frontier markets.
The InsuResilience Investment Fund is backing Agritask with a $6 million investment to help the company build out tools for agriculture insurance and expand outreach to small-scale farmers. “We see technology as a key enabler to make climate insurance affordable for populations with low income and small-scale farmers in particular,” said Ernesto Costa of BlueOrchard, which manages the InsuResilience Investment Fund.
Agritask is the fund’s fifth equity investment. It joins a growing roster of companies supporting small farmer insurance adoption as a solution to climate risk, including WorldCover, which raised $6 million earlier in May for its insurance offerings to smallholder farmers in Africa.
