Evelyn Nguleka, president of the World Farmers Organization, asked the International Association of Agricultural Production Insurers to help the world’s farmers. (National Crop Insurance Services)

KANSAS CITY — Evelyn Nguleka, a Zambian farmer and veterinary doctor who is president of the World Farmers Organization, appealed to the crop insurance executives gathered her this week to develop policies that will help farmers stay in business.

“Climate change is critical at the moment,” said Nguleka, whose organization is composed of farm groups in both the developed and developing countries and who represented the world’s farmers at last week’s United Nations conference that adopted the Sustainable Development Goals.

“My appeal to all of you is to keep up with innovations and means and ways and force the relationship between the farmers and the insurance companies,” she said.

Noting that premiums are rising in some places and crops are not insured in others due to high risk, Nguleka said, “Find innovative ways to buy down that risk.”

“Farming is not a lifestyle,” she continued. “Farming is a business, and if farming is a business the same factors that affect any other business affects farmers — access to credit, insurance, access to land.”

“If the land is not mine, I cannot invest,” she said. “Farmers need access to knowledge and skills, access to education, that way we will be able to make sure our farmers are not subsistence farmers only, but have a livelihood and can produce food.”

“Farmers want to make sure food is not only safe and nutritious but we need to be profitable.”