Nearly 7,000 Kenyan farmers signed up to the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition to protect their crops during the most recent short rains season from October 2022 to January 2023.
The Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition is a first-of-its-kind, blockchain based parametric crop protection for subsistence farmers, led by the Lemonade Foundation. The company first announced details of the protection in March 2022.
The Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition provided protection for farmers’ livelihoods impacted by weather events during the recent growing season in Kenya. At the end of the season, those eligible were paid out instantly via smart blockchain contracts.
Moreover, through the use of smart contracts, this enabled for fast cash transfers without the need for filing claims, or human adjusters, which therefore lowered costs and sped up the process.
Alongside additional founding partners, which includes Avalanche, Chainlink, DAOstack, Etherisc, Hannover Re, and Pula, the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition offered its non-profit, instantaneous crop protection program to smallholder farmers in the region at the commencement of the planting season.
“Working alongside our partners and seeing the very real impact decentralized technologies can have on smallholder farmers in Kenya is incredibly encouraging,” said Shai Wininger, Director at the Lemonade Foundation.
“We’ve built highly-accurate data models that trigger autonomous smart contracts, not only bringing the cost of handling a claim down to almost zero, but also providing the best experience for our customers. We’re excited to expand beyond this initial stage and continue scaling to give even more farmers access to critical financial protection when they need it most.”
“The Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition’s groundbreaking Kenya project built on Avalanche illustrates how blockchain is uniquely positioned to make the world better not only in the future, but now,” said John Wu, President of Ava Labs.
“We are proud to support the Lemonade Foundation as it helps thousands of smallholder farmers secure their livelihoods from climate dangers. This project is still just on the runway, and thousands of farmers might just be the beginning of a massive movement.”
The Lemonade Foundation said that the next phase of the project will see them focus on the upcoming long rains season in Kenya which takes place in April. The firm explained that it plans to scale the program throughout the region and expand to support tens of thousands more subsistence farmers facing real climate risks to their livelihoods.
