Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE)

The Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE) provides index insurance to smallholder farmers in Africa, utilizing mobile technology and solar-powered weather stations to trigger rapid payouts for yield loss. By 2018, the program insured over 1.7 million farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, covering crops such as maize and coffee against drought, storms, and excess rain. The model relies on a 50% premium subsidy shared between farmers and agribusiness partners, and leverages mobile money platforms like M-PESA to reduce operational costs and accelerate claims settlement. The document identifies critical success factors for scaling, including robust local climate data, progressive regulation, and the high adoption of mobile money across Africa.

• By 2018, ACRE had insured more than 1.7 million farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, protecting over USD 180 million in value against weather risks including storms, drought, and excess rain for crops such as potato, wheat, sunflower, coffee, sorghum, maize, and cashew nuts.
• The insurance model utilizes a 50% premium subsidy, where the smallholder farmer pays half and agribusiness partners cover the remaining half. Payouts for yield loss are triggered immediately via mobile money transfers based on data from solar-powered local weather stations.
• Mobile money platforms, specifically M-PESA, enhance the program by improving data collection, reducing administrative costs, speeding up policy registration and claims settlement, and providing more accurate geo-tagging of farms.
• The expansion of index insurance in Africa is supported by high mobile money adoption—with over 500 million registered accounts in 2021—and specific regulatory environments, such as the CIMA region's regulations favoring agricultural microinsurance integrated with mobile technology.
• A significant barrier to the innovation and deployment of insurance products is the lack of robust climate data at the local level, which is necessary to quantify risk, estimate losses, and identify critical thresholds.

APA

Climate Policy Initiative (2021). Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE). https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/gca-africa-adaptation-finance/case_studies/agriculture-and-climate-risk-enterprise-acre-2/

Chicago

Climate Policy Initiative. Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE). 2021. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/gca-africa-adaptation-finance/case_studies/agriculture-and-climate-risk-enterprise-acre-2/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Policy Initiative |title=Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE) |date=16 September 2021 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/gca-africa-adaptation-finance/case_studies/agriculture-and-climate-risk-enterprise-acre-2/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatepolicyinitiative2021agriculture, author = {{Climate Policy Initiative}}, title = {{Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE)}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2021}, month = sep, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/gca-africa-adaptation-finance/case_studies/agriculture-and-climate-risk-enterprise-acre-2/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }