ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi
The Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) has urged smallholder women farmers in Bauchi to access federal government agricultural insurance service scheme in order to secure their farms and agricultural goods.
NAIC made the call at a programme tagged ‘Participatory Assessment of Government Expenditure on Agricultural Community Score Cards’ during the weekend in Bauchi.
The Branch Manager, NAIC, Bauchi office, Mohammed Jauro, who was speaking at the programme which was organized by Fahimta Women and Youth Development Initiative in collaboration with ActionAid Nigeria, said that his organization is carrying out massive sensitization programme in all six geopolitical zones of the country to educate farmers, especially women on the importance of the insurance scheme.
He decried that only few women smallholder farmers access agricultural insurance to protect their farms and agricultural goods while urging more women to key into the federal government’s agricultural insurance policy to be able to guard against farm losses.
Jauro stressed that if women smallholder farmers key into the agricultural policy, by insuring farms and agricultural projects, they would receive appropriate compensation in the event of losses.
Earlier, the Programme Officer of Fahimta, Tosin Suberu said that the risk-prone nature of agricultural enterprises, heightened by the climate change increases the need for women smallholder farmers to access agricultural insurance.
He noted that according to a survey conducted in six geopolitical zones, including Abuja, to ascertain accessibility of smallholder farmers to agricultural insurance, only few women farmers are aware of the programme which decreases their chances to access the insurance.
“Under the five fiscal years (2014-2018) of government budgetary allocation, agricultural insurance was found to be N2.4 billion while the budgetary release within the same period was N1.5 billion, giving the aggregate percentage released for five years to 63%.
“Findings also revealed that out of the N1.1 billion budgetary expenditure in the five years by NAIC, Only N37 million was accessed by smallholder women farmers, which represents 3.24 out of the NAIC total farm loss compensation for the five years,” he said.
Tosin who listed challenges of women smallholder farmers to include; low awareness about government agricultural insurance, poor funding on the part of government, delay in banks’ Remita of farmers premium and illiteracy on the part of smallholder farmers, recommended an aggressive awareness creation of the federal government’s agricultural insurance scheme in rural communities among others.