By Patience Saghana
Federal and State governments effort at alleviating scarcity of food and poverty in the land may be boosted by insurance culture which farmers need to increase enhance agricultural yields
It was in view of this that federal government established the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) in 1987 to primarily protect the farmers from the effects of natural hazards through adequate insurance cover. The implementation of the scheme was initially vested in the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Company Limited, which was later transformed into a corporation by Decree No. 37 of 1993.

The corporation’s volume of risks as at 2008, stood at N20. 63 billion covering about 48,002 policies and the volume rose N28. 07 billion covering about 52,993 policies while the sum of N250.12 million and N327.54 million was paid as claims to various beneficiaries in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

In addition, NAIC is beginning to gain continental and international recognition to the extent of serving as the beacon of agricultural insurance to various countries particularly in the African continent. Sudan for example is currently understudying the operations of the Nigerian model of the agric insurance scheme while India and Tunisia have expressed willingness to engage NAIC in the area of technical cooperation.

To enable the corporation reach every available farmer and improve its monitoring visits to their various locations across the country, it maintains branches in each of the 36 states of the federation. The branch Managers and their team in the respective branches are regularly deployed to meeting farmers, especially on their projects or farm sites.

Kwatri Kwagga Yusuf, managing director of the corporation, said there has been positive response from farmers from every nook and crannies of the country, adding the spread has enabled NAIC to further improve its monitoring visits to farmers.

Yusuf added that those who been covered by the scheme in the past kept on passing the information to others. “We have also continued to receive enquiries through our websites, through which we keep directing our numerous potential clients to our various branch offices”, he added.

He further disclosed that the corporation also organizes free workshop under its extension services programme, in state capitals for all farmers and extension workers to enlighten them on NAIC’s activities.
On the issue of making their services available to poor and subsistent farmers, he assured that the corporation covers all categories of farmers, adding that NAIC is poised to supporting subsistent farmers with a view to making farming, a very productive and lucrative means of livelihood for them.

According to him, “This category of farmers are beginning to see reasons in making real money on their farming activities by organizing themselves into cooperative societies, through which we give them adequate coverage and other risk management advises.”

Yusuf also disclosed that due to the insistence of the corporation, farmers have continued to adopt new production (farming) strategies rather than the traditional types formerly adopted by them.
He however pointed out that there is still room for improvement as far as reaching out to its potential clients are concerned, adding that NAIC will continue to set up more targets towards attaining optimum performance in its mandate.

He also cited the general lukewarm attitude of the populace towards insurance and lack of commitment from the various state governments, especially with respect to redeeming their 12.5 percent premium subsidy obligation, as the major challenges facing NAIC.

The director further identified the difficulty of designing new agricultural insurance products and reassured that the corporation is already collaborating with the World Bank in the area of weather index insurance which is designed to address local weather indices with a view to easing loss assessment and indemnification.