Paraguay is sometimes referred to as Corazón de América, or the Heart of America.

While it has before boasted the fastest growing economy in the globe a large proportion of Paraguay’s population derives its income from agriculture, much of it from subsistence farming. Paraguay is also an important producer of soya beans, being the sixth largest soya bean supplier in the world.

In 2008, a drought wreaked havoc on the farmers. But Tajy, a co-operative Paraguayan insurer, responded to the farmers’ demand for insurance in co-operation with the Federation of Producer Co-operatives (FECOPROD) and another co-operative insurer, Grupo Aseguradora La Segunda of Argentina, which contributed the expertise it had gained providing insurance to Argentinean farmers for 78 years.

As well as promoting safe production areas and supervising work practices, the scheme has allowed Tajy to move into new business areas and reinsurance.

Successfully insuring the first couple of crops has enabled it to increase and extend the range of cover it provides for soya.

Demonstrating the success of the model, the number of soya producers insured in Paraguay jumped 359 per cent from 2010-2011.

This story is an IYC Yearbook feature: https://ica.coop/en/iycbook