The project is moving along nicely. We now have data from 40 different weather stations and have run correlations between rainfall and crop yield for maize, rice, millet, sorghum, and yams.
As a reminder the overview of the project can be found at:
http://www.katieschool.org/outreach/Microinsurance.shtml
Because of the complexity of the models we have decided to focus on northern Ghana (north of Kintampo Falls) where there is only one rainy season.
I have now had the opportunity to present twice this month on our project to two different groups. One was a nation-wide broadcast to a Chicago-based insurer, the other was for a group of Germans in town as part of the ISU Management Development Institute.
These speeches and presentations can be found at
Based on feedback that we got from a prospective reinsurer, we have decided to focus on maize, and look at significant deviations which could affect credit defaults for farmers. The ultimate product would be for banks and eventually microfinance institutions that loan money to farmers.
We are in the process of finishing up the analysis and doing the write-up.
Stay tuned,
Jim
