INGO Insurance Company (Kyiv), based on the results of the Meteorological Protection index insurance program from Syngenta, paid compensation to farmers in the season of 2024 for a total amount of UAH 231 million, which is ten times more than a year earlier.
This is the highest compensation rate since the program was launched in 2016. 97% of the farmers who joined the program in the 2024 season received record insurance indemnities due to the extremely dry and hot season during the flowering and grain filling periods. The program allowed 349 farms to partially reduce losses from adverse weather conditions, the company said in a statement.
“This season, Meteorological Protection coverage has expanded by 88% to 502 thousand hectares. Due to unfavorable weather conditions, the amount of compensation increased tenfold, and the average compensation rate was 52%. We support Ukrainian farmers with agro-technological innovations, services and unique financial products even in the frontline areas,” says Roman Khrypko, Head of Financial Programs and Insurance Solutions at Syngenta.
It is emphasized that almost 50% of the total compensation amount was paid to farms in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.
The main crops covered by insurance payments in the 2024 season are corn and sunflower with a total area of 335 thousand hectares and a compensation amount of UAH 225 million. Agricultural producers have insured sunflower and corn crops in 1039 applications, including 1033 applications with 99% indemnity and 386 with 100% indemnity.
The Meteorological Protection program covers the entire territory of Ukraine. In the 2024 season, Meteorological Protection offered insurance for sunflower, grain, corn and rapeseed crops against three weather risks: drought, heat and rain. The key period of the program is the flowering and grain filling phases. The terms of the program for 2025 are currently being agreed upon to further support agricultural producers.
At the center of the Meteorological Protection mechanism is an index, a special indicator that characterizes the impact of the intensity of a particular risk on crop yields. The threshold value of this index characterizes the occurrence of an insured event and corresponds to a critical yield loss for an agricultural producer, which is determined during the development of the insurance product. The index should show very accurately how a certain risk affects crop yields, and this mainly depends on the quality of the insurance product development, namely the data, mathematical model, etc. Within the program, the meteorological data point for fixing the index is a 6×8 km area, which is considered to be a perfectly acceptable area for heat or drought insurance, as these weather events cover a relatively large area.
Syngenta is a part of the Syngenta Group, one of the world’s largest agricultural technology developers with about 60 thousand employees. The company operates in more than 100 countries and works closely with producers and partners to achieve its four sustainable development priorities.
Over 22 years of operation in Ukraine, the company has built a team of agricultural experts, strong partnerships with scientific institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and continues to invest in the development of business infrastructure.