Agroshield

AgroShield is a decentralized parametric crop insurance platform for smallholder farmers, starting with maize farmers in Makueni County, Kenya. Farmers buy a policy directly from their phone with a few taps, paying a small premium in USDC. Instead of filing claims, coverage is backed by a smart contract that automatically settles payouts when an on-chain rainfall oracle confirms drought conditions — if rainfall in the farmer's registered region falls below an agreed threshold (e.g. under 25mm over 30 days) during the coverage window, the payout triggers without any claim form, assessor, or adjuster. Built on Stellar with Soroban smart contracts, AgroShield issues real on-chain insurance policies (not off-chain promises backed by a company's balance sheet), so funds are provably escrowed and payouts are transparent and auditable by anyone. Farmers interact via a mobile-first web app with multi-wallet support and sub-cent transaction fees, keeping premiums and payouts economically viable at small ticket sizes.

Fewer than 3% of smallholder farmers in Africa have any form of crop insurance, and traditional insurance fails them for structural reasons: Claims are too slow. After a drought, a physical assessor must visit the farm to verify damage — often taking weeks or months. By the time money arrives, the planting window has closed. Operating costs make small premiums unviable. Inspectors, paperwork, and dispute handling cost far more than the tiny premiums smallholder farmers can afford. Payouts arrive too late to matter. Money that lands after the next planting season starts provides no real protection. No insurance blocks credit. Lenders treat uninsured farmers as high-risk, so farmers face loan refusals or punitive interest rates — trapping them in a cycle of low investment and low yield. The core problem is that traditional insurance depends on human claims assessment, which is structurally incompatible with smallholder economics. Parametric insurance removes the assessor entirely by settling on objective, verifiable data — but until now it has been hard to deliver to farmers who are unbanked, use basic smartphones, and transact in small amounts. Stellar makes this feasible: sub-cent fees mean micro-premiums are viable, and fast finality means payouts land in seconds rather than the next planting season.

Built and working: Deployed Soroban smart contracts on Stellar testnet implementing the full parametric policy lifecycle: policy purchase with premium escrow, oracle rainfall reporting, threshold-triggered settlement, and policy state reads Weather oracle integration feeding rainfall data on-chain, with multi-source consensus to prevent false triggers Mobile-responsive farmer dashboard covering coverage, payouts, weather signals, and profile Multi-wallet support via Stellar Wallets Kit (Freighter, Albedo, Xverse, and mobile wallets) so farmers aren't locked to one provider Full test suite for contract logic and frontend components Impact goals for the pilot in Makueni County: Payouts delivered within seconds of trigger confirmation instead of weeks-to-months, landing in time to fund the next planting season Premiums small enough for farmers working at subsistence scale, enabled by Stellar's sub-cent fees A portable, on-chain insurance and claims history that can later serve as credit attestation for lenders — helping farmers unlock better financing terms Direction: extending coverage beyond maize to sorghum, beans, and wheat across Kenya and East Africa, with SMS-based early weather alerts so farmers can act on drought signals before losses occur.