The St. Kitts and Nevis gov­ern­ment has wel­comed the de­ci­sion by the St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines based Lynch Caribbean Bro­kers Ltd. To in­clude the twin is­land Fed­er­a­tion in the Re­gion­al Eco­nom­i­cal Agri-In­sur­ance Pro­gramme (REAP).

The in­sur­ance pro­gramme was an­nounced dur­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed 19th Caribbean Week of Agri­cul­ture (CWA 2025), held here and Agri­cul­ture, Fish­eries and Ma­rine Re­sources Min­is­ter, Samal Dug­gins, said that the in­sur­ance pro­gramme should be viewed as a vi­tal pil­lar for na­tion­al re­silience and re­gion­al in­no­va­tion.

“Agri­cul­ture and fish­eries re­main at the heart of our na­tion’s food se­cu­ri­ty, liveli­hoods, and eco­nom­ic re­silience. Yet, farm­ers and fish­ers are in­creas­ing­ly vul­ner­a­ble to risks be­yond their con­trol—cli­mate change, un­pre­dictable weath­er pat­terns, nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, pests, and mar­ket volatil­i­ty” he added.

Un­der the REAP project, lo­cal farm­ers and fish­ers are ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from re­gion­al in­sur­ance pro­gramme aimed at re­duc­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, mar­ket volatil­i­ty, and the grow­ing im­pacts of cli­mate change.

REAP, de­vel­oped by Lynch Caribbean Bro­kers Ltd. of St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, will soon be launched here in part­ner­ship with the gov­ern­ment through the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Fish­eries and Ma­rine Re­sources.

The ini­tia­tive is a flex­i­ble mul­ti-per­il para­met­ric in­sur­ance so­lu­tion tai­lored specif­i­cal­ly for the agri­cul­ture and fish­eries sec­tors. Un­like tra­di­tion­al in­sur­ance mod­els, which re­ly on in­di­vid­ual loss as­sess­ments, REAP us­es ad­vanced in­dex-based da­ta and satel­lite mon­i­tor­ing to trig­ger pay­outs when pre-de­fined thresh­olds are met or sur­passed.

Cov­er­age spans crops, live­stock, and fish­eries, pro­vid­ing a com­pre­hen­sive safe­ty net for pro­duc­ers across the na­tion.

Un­der the pro­gramme, the St. Kitts and Nevis gov­ern­ment will pay the pre­mi­um on be­half of reg­is­tered farm­ers and fish­ers. Con­stant re­mote mon­i­tor­ing of in­sured lo­ca­tions en­sures rapid re­sponse and once a pay­out in­dex is trig­gered, ben­e­fi­cia­ries are no­ti­fied with­in two to three weeks, and pay­ments are cal­cu­lat­ed and dis­trib­uted di­rect­ly per pol­i­cy.

St. Kitts and Nevis is among nine Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­tries that have signed on­to the pro­gramme. St. Lu­cia of­fi­cial­ly signed on to the ini­tia­tive and launched REAP in Ju­ly 2025.

Lynch Caribbean Bro­kers man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Dami­an Bowen said that the pro­gramme’s de­sign was shaped by ex­ten­sive na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion, adding that “REAP’s de­vel­op­ment was the re­sult of care­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion with key stake­hold­ers dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2025. “To­geth­er with ex­perts from the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and mem­bers of the farm­ing and fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties, we cre­at­ed a mod­el tai­lored to re­al needs rather than ab­stract as­sump­tions.”

In a pre-roll­out state­ment, Lynch Caribbean Bro­kers Ltd not­ed, “REAP is not a prod­uct on a shelf, it is an agri-in­sur­ance val­ue chain in mo­tion, de­signed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with ex­perts from the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and the farm­ing and fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties. It in­te­grates tech­nol­o­gy, lo­cal knowl­edge, and re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion to cre­ate a trans­par­ent, prac­ti­cal, and sus­tain­able so­lu­tion for agri­cul­tur­al re­silience.”

Be­yond fi­nan­cial cov­er­age, REAP is ex­pect­ed to in­tro­duce liveli­hood pro­tec­tion, a na­tion­al en­rol­ment cam­paign, pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion sem­i­nars, and dig­i­tal dash­boards that im­prove trans­paren­cy and da­ta-dri­ven de­ci­sion-mak­ing across the sec­tor.

Dug­gins said that the gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing re­silience across the agri­cul­ture and fish­eries sec­tors.

“It is in this con­text that the Min­istry strong­ly sup­ports the es­tab­lish­ment and ex­pan­sion of in­sur­ance mech­a­nisms tai­lored specif­i­cal­ly for our farm­ers and fish­ers. These tools are not lux­u­ries—they are ne­ces­si­ties that pro­vide a safe­ty net, en­sur­ing that the men and women who ded­i­cate their lives to feed­ing our peo­ple can re­cov­er quick­ly af­ter shocks and con­tin­ue their work with­out be­ing pushed in­to fi­nan­cial hard­ship”, he added.