In Kenya, 1984 is known as the year of the cup, or the goro goro. The goro goro is a cup used to measure two kilograms of maize flower on the market, and the maize flower is used to make ugali, a polenta-like cake that is eaten together with vegetables. Both the maize and the vegetables are grown on most Kenyan farms, which means that most families can feed themselves from their own farm. One goro goro can feed three meals for an average family, and in 1984, the whole harvest could fit in one goro goro. It was and still is one of the worst droughts in living memory. Now today, I insure farmers against droughts like those in the year of the cup, or to be more specific, I insure the rains.
U Keniji, 1984. poznata je kao godina ćupa, ili goro goro godina. Goro goro je ćup koji se koristi za mjerenje dva kilograma kukuruznog brašna na tržnici, i kukuruzno brašno se koristi za pravljenje ugalija, kolača od palente koji se jede s povrćem. I kukuruz i povrće su uzgojeni na većini kenijskih farmi, što znači da se većina obitelji može hraniti s vlastitih farmi. Jedan goro goro dovoljan je za tri obroka prosječne obitelji, i 1984., cijela žetva stala je u jedan goro goro. To je bila i još uvijek jest jedna od najgorih suša kojih se sjećamo. Danas, osiguravam farmere protiv suša poput one u godini ćupa, ili da budem točnija, osiguravam kišu.
I come from a family of missionaries who built hospitals in Indonesia, and my father built a psychiatric hospital in Tanzania. This is me, age five, in front of that hospital. I don't think they thought I'd grow up to sell insurance. (Laughter) So let me tell you how that happened.
Dolazim iz obitelji misionara koji su gradili bolnice u Indoneziji, i moj otac izgradio je psihijatrijsku bolnicu u Tanzaniji. Ovo sam ja, s pet godina, ispred te bolnice. Mislim da nisu vjerovali da ću odrasti da prodajem osiguranje. (Smijeh) Dozvolite da vam kažem kako se to dogodilo.
In 2008, I was working for the Ministry of Agriculture of Rwanda, and my boss had just been promoted to become the minister. She launched an ambitious plan to start a green revolution in her country, and before we knew it, we were importing tons of fertilizer and seed and telling farmers how to apply that fertilizer and plant. A couple of weeks later, the International Monetary Fund visited us, and asked my minister, "Minister, it's great that you want to help farmers reach food security, but what if it doesn't rain?" My minister answered proudly and somewhat defiantly, "I am going to pray for rain." That ended the discussion. On the way back to the ministry in the car, she turned around to me and said, "Rose, you've always been interested in finance. Go find us some insurance."
2008. radila sam za ministarstvo poljoprivrede u Rwandi, i moja je šefica upravo bila promaknuta na mjesto ministrice. Lansirala je ambiciozan plan da započne zelenu revoluciju u svojoj zemlji, i prije nego smo se snašli, uvozili smo tone gnojiva i sjemena i govorili farmerima kako da koriste to gnojivo i sade. Nekoliko tjedana kasnije, posjetio nas je Međunarodni monetarni fond i pitao moju ministricu, "Ministrice, divno je što želite pomoći farmerima da pribave sigurnost u hrani, ali što ako ne pada kiša?" Moja ministrica ponosno je odgovorila i pomalo prkosno, "Molit ću se za kišu." To je završilo raspravu. Na povratku u ministarstvo u autu, okrenula se prema meni i rekla, "Rose, tebe su uvijek zanimale financije. Nađi nam osiguranje."
It's been six years since, and last year I was fortunate enough to be part of a team that insured over 185,000 farmers in Kenya and Rwanda against drought. They owned an average of half an acre and paid on average two Euros in premium. It's microinsurance.
Od tada je prošlo šest godina, i prošle godine imala sam sreće postati dio tima koji je osigurao preko 185,000 farmera u Keniji i Rwandi protiv suše. Posjedovali su u prosjeku pola hektara i platili premiju od dva eura u prosjeku. To je mikroosiguranje.
Now, traditional insurance doesn't work with two to three Euros of premium, because traditional insurance relies on farm visits. A farmer here in Germany would be visited for the start of the season, halfway through, and at the end, and again if there was a loss, to estimate the damages. For a small-scale farmer in the middle of Africa, the maths of doing those visits simply don't add up. So instead, we rely on technology and data. This satellite measures whether there were clouds or not, because think about it: If there are clouds, then you might have some rain, but if there are no clouds, then it's actually impossible for it to rain. These images show the onset of the rains this season in Kenya. You see that around March 6, the clouds move in and then disappear, and then around the March 11, the clouds really move in. That, and those clouds, were the onset of the rains this year. This satellite covers the whole of Africa and goes back as far as 1984, and that's important, because if you know how many times a place has had a drought in the last 30 years, you can make a pretty good estimate what the chances are of drought in the future, and that means that you can put a price tag on the risk of drought.
Sad, tradicionalno osiguranje ne radi s premijama od dva do tri eura, jer se tradicionalno osiguranje oslanja na posjete farmama. Farmer u Njemačkoj bio bi posjećen na početku sezone, na pola, i na kraju, i ponovno ako bi bilo gubitka, kako bi se procijenila šteta. Za malog farmera usred Afrike, matematika obavljanja tih posjeta jednostavno nije vrijedila. Umjesto toga, oslanjamo se na tehnologiju i podatke. Ovaj satelit mjeri je li bilo oblaka ili ne, jer razmislite: ako ima oblaka, možda će biti kiše, ali ako nema oblaka, onda je nemoguće da pada kiša. Ove slike pokazuju početak kiša ove sezone u Keniji. Vidite da se oko 6. ožujka oblaci miču i nestaju, i zatim, oko 11. ožujka, oblaci stvarno dolaze. To, i ovi oblaci, bili su početak kiša ove godine. Ovaj satelit pokriva cijelu Afriku i datira unatrag do 1984., i to je važno, jer ako znate koliko puta je neko mjesto imalo sušu u posljednjih 30 godina, možete dobro procijeniti koje su šanse za sušu u budućnosti, i onda možete staviti cijenu na rizik suše.
The data alone isn't enough. We devise agronomic algorithms which tell us how much rainfall a crop needs and when. For example, for maize at planting, you need to have two days of rain for farmers to plant, and then it needs to rain once every two weeks for the crop to properly germinate. After that, you need rain every three weeks for the crop to form its leaves, whereas at flowering, you need it to rain more frequently, about once every 10 days for the crop to form its cob. At the end of the season, you actually don't want it to rain, because rains then can damage the crop.
Sami podaci nisu dovoljni. Stvaramo agronomske algoritme koji nam govore koliko kiše usjev treba i kada. Na primjer, za sjetvu kukuruza, trebate dva dana kiše kako bi farmeri sadili, i onda treba padati kiša jednom u dva tjedna kako bi usjev proklijao. Nakon toga trebate kišu svaka tri tjedna da bi se formirali listovi, gdje za cvjetanje trebati kišu češće, otprilike jednom u 10 dana kako bi se formirao klip. Na kraju sezone, zapravo ne želite da kiši, jer kiša tada može oštetiti usjev.
Devising such a cover is difficult, but it turned out the real challenge was selling insurance. We set ourselves a modest target of 500 farmers insured after our first season. After a couple of months' intense marketing, we had signed up the grand total of 185 farmers. I was disappointed and confounded. Everybody kept telling me that farmers wanted insurance, but our prime customers simply weren't buying. They were waiting to see what would happen, didn't trust insurance companies, or thought, "I've managed for so many years. Why would I buy insurance now?"
Osmisliti takvo pokrivanje je teško, ali ispalo je da je pravi izazov prodati osiguranje. Postavili smo si skromne ciljeve od 500 farmera osiguranih nakon prve sezone. Nakon nekoliko mjeseci intenzivnog marketinga, pridružilo nam se ukupno 185 farmera. Bila sam razočarana i zbunjena. Svi su mi govorili da farmeri žele osiguranje, ali naše najvažnije mušterije nisu kupovale. Čekali su da vide što će se dogoditi, nisu vjerovali osiguravajućim kućama, ili su mislili, "Uspijevao sam tolike godine. Što će mi sada osiguranje?"
Now many of you know microcredit, the method of providing small loans to poor people pioneered by Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Grameen Bank. Turns out, selling microcredit isn't the same as selling insurance. For credit, a farmer needs to earn the trust of a bank, and if it succeeds, the bank will advance him money. That's an attractive proposition. For insurance, the farmer needs to trust the insurance company, and needs to advance the insurance company money. It's a very different value proposition. And so the uptick of insurance has been slow, with so far only 4.4 percent of Africans taking up insurance in 2012, and half of that number is in one country, South Africa.
Puno vas zna za mikrokredite, metodu davanja malih pozajmica siromašnima koje je pokrenuo Muhammad Yunus, koji je osvojio Nobelovu nagradu za mir za rad sa Grameen Bankom. Ispada da prodaja mikrokredita nije ista kao prodaja osiguranja. Za kredit, farmer mora pridobiti povjerenje banke, i ako uspije, banka će mu dati novac. To je privlačna propozicija. Za osiguranje, farmer mora vjerovati osiguravajućoj kući, i treba dati novac osiguravajućoj kući. To je vrlo drugačija propozicija vrijednosti. Tako da je porast osiguranja bio spor, za sada s 4.4. posto Afrikanaca koji su uzeli osiguranje u 2012., i pola tog broja je u jednoj zemlji, Južnoj Africi.
We tried for some years selling insurance directly to farmers, with very high marketing cost and very limited success. Then we realized that there were many organizations working with farmers: seed companies, microfinance institutions, mobile phone companies, government agencies. They were all providing loans to farmers, and often, just before they'd finalize the loan, the farmer would say, "But what if it doesn't rain? How do you expect me to repay my loan?" Many of these organizations were taking on the risk themselves, simply hoping that that year, the worst wouldn't happen. Most of the organizations, however, were limiting their growth in agriculture. They couldn't take on this kind of risk. These organizations became our customers, and when combining credit and insurance, interesting things can happen. Let me tell you one more story.
Pokušavali smo kroz nekoliko godina prodavati osiguranje izravno farmerima s visokim troškovima marketinga i ograničenim uspjehom. Onda smo shvatili da postoji puno organizacija koje rade s farmerima: seed tvrtke, mikrofinancijske institucije, mobilni operateri, vladine agencije. Oni su svi davali pozajmice farmerima i često, taman prije dovršetka pozajmice, farmer bi rekao, "Ali što ako ne kiši? Kako očekujete da ću vam vratiti zajam?" Mnoge od ovih organizacija preuzimale su rizik na sebe, nadajući se da se te godine, neće dogoditi najgore. Većina organizacija, ipak, ograničavala je svoj rast u poljoprivredi. Nisu mogli podnijeti takav rizik. Ove organizacije postale su naše mušterije, i kada kombiniramo kredite i osiguranje, zanimljive stvari mogu se dogoditi. Dozvolite da vam ispričam još jednu priču.
At the start of February 2012 in western Kenya, the rains started, and they started early, and when rains start early, farmers are encouraged, because it usually means that the season is going to be good. So they took out loans and planted. For the next three weeks, there wasn't a single drop of rain, and the crops that had germinated so well shriveled and died. We'd insured the loans of a microfinance institution that had provided those loans to about 6,000 farmers in that area, and we called them up and said, "Look, we know about the drought. We've got you. We'll give you 200,000 Euros at the end of the season." They said, "Wow, that's great, but that'll be late. Could you give us the money now? Then these farmers can still replant and can get a harvest this season." So we convinced our insurance partners, and later that April, these farmers replanted. We took the idea of replanting to a seed company and convinced them to price the cost of insurance into every bag of seed, and in every bag, we packed a card that had a number on it, and when the farmers would open the card, they'd text in that number, and that number would actually help us to locate the farmer and allocate them to a satellite pixel. A satellite would then measure the rainfall for the next three weeks, and if it didn't rain, we'd replace their seed.
Početkom veljače 2012. u zapadnoj Keniji, kiše su počele, i počele su rano, i kada kiše počnu rano, farmere potiču, jer to većinom znači da će sezona biti dobra. Tako da su uzeli pozajmice i sadili. Sljedeća tri tjedna, nije bilo jedne kapi kiše, i usjevi koji su proklijali tako dobro smežurali su se i umrli. Osigurali smo pozajmice mikrofinancijske institucije koja daje te pozajmice za otprilike 6,000 farmera u tom području, i nazvali smo ih i rekli, "Gledajte, znamo za sušu. Pokrit ćemo vas. Dat ćemo vam 200,000 eura na kraju sezone." Rekli su, "Wow, to je odlično, no to će biti kasno. Možete li nam sada dati novac? Tako da ovi farmeri mogu ponovno saditi i imati žetvu ove sezone." Tako da smo uvjerili naše osiguravajuće partnere, i kasnije tog travnja, ovi farmeri su ponovno sadili. Odnijeli smo ideju ponovnog sađenja tvrtci koja se bavi prodajom sjemena i uvjerili ih da cijenu osiguranja uključe u svaku vreću sjemena, i u svakoj vreći bila je upakirana kartica koja je imala broj, i kada bi je farmeri otvorili, poslali bi poruku s tim brojem, i taj broj nam je pomogao locirati farmera i pridružiti im piksel satelita. Potom bi satelit mjerio kišu sljedeća tri tjedna, i ako ne bi kišilo, zamijenili bi im sjeme.
One of the first — (Applause) — Hold on, I'm not there!
Jedan od prvih — (Pljesak) — Pričekajte, nije gotovo!
One of the first beneficiaries of this replanting guarantee was Bosco Mwinyi. We visited his farm later that August, and I wish I could show you the smile on his face when he showed us his harvest, because it warmed my heart and it made me realize why selling insurance can be a good thing. But you know, he insisted that we get his whole harvest in the picture, so we had to zoom out a lot. Insurance secured his harvest that season, and I believe that today, we have all the tools to enable African farmers to take control of their own destiny. No more years of the cup. Instead, I am looking forward to, at least somehow, the year of the insurance, or the year of the great harvest.
Jedan od prvih primatelja ove garancije ponovne sadnje bio je Bosco Mwinyi. Posjetili smo njegovu farmu kasnije u kolovozu, i željela bih da vam mogu pokazati osmjeh na njegovom licu kada nam je pokazao svoju žetvu, jer je to zagrijalo moje srce i pomoglo mi shvatiti zašto prodaja osiguranja može biti dobra stvar. Ali znate, on je inzistirao da uslikamo cijelu žetvu, tako da smo se morali dosta udaljiti. Osiguranje mu je omogućilo žetvu te sezone, i vjerujem da danas, imamo sve alate da afričkim farmerima omogućimo da preuzmu vlastitu sudbinu. Nema više godina ćupa. Umjesto toga, veselim se, na neki način, godini osiguranja, ili godini odlične žetve.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)