Kenyan agricultural economist, wins the 2016 Norman Borlang award

Kenyan agricultural economist, Dr. Mude Andrew has been named the 2016 winner of the Norman Borlang award for his work in developing livestock insurance programme for communities in remote and arid lands.

Mude and his team developed an index based livestock insurance on 2008 which uses satellites to foretell droughts and pay the insured farmers long before the animal is lost.

Dr. Andrew Mude (right) during a press conference

The State Department of Livestock has adopted the system and is piloting it in Wajir and Turkana Counties. So far, nearly 20, 000 households have benefitted from Dr. Mude’s index based insurance. Last week, 290 herders received payment worth Kshs.  3,000,000 after the satellites showed a decline of forage material.

Dr. Mude is currently based at the International Livestock Research Institute and he is the second Kenyan to receive the $10,000 Norman Borlang award for field research and application.  In 2013 Dr. Charity Mutegi and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KARO) won the award for her work on combating aflatoxin.

Mude will formally receive the award on 12th October, 2016 in USA.

Dr. Mude said, “From data available from satellites which gives very accurate readings on the amount of green forage available, and that green is closely related to the health of livestock. And we can use a range of mdoels to e able to use this data to create what is called an index. So any particular area that suffers from shortfalls or deficiencies of forage which can be captured by satellites that would trigger a payment

This post is a transcription of the NTV news posted online on 30th August, 2016 and available at: http://ntv.nation.co.ke/news/national/2725528-3363638-ihbsrlz/index.html