Magazine date:
Jan 2012 The agricultural insurance project indexed to weather forecasts, supported by the COMESA and the European Union has been abandoned because of the exorbitant costs pertaining to data collection from the meteorological department. The latter requires 20 000 USD per meteorological station, that is, 1.3 million USD for the overall 64 stations in the country. The project initiators refuse to inject more capital, considering this cost excessive. In Uganda, Swaziland, Ethiopia and Rwanda, similar pilot projects have been launched with meteorological data available for free.