The Lagos Agro Processing, Productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Support (APPEALS Project) has appealed to farmers to embrace insurance to mitigate climate change and other natural disasters.
The State Project Coordinator, Lagos APPEALS, Mrs Oluranti Sagoe-Oviebo, made the plea on Tuesday during an Agricultural Insurance and Risk Management Forum for Farmers at the Johnson Agiri Complex, Oko-Oba, Agege.
Sagoe-Oviebo said, “However, we are aware that there are issues, even as a human being, you should insure your life. For your businesses, insurance is key but unfortunately we have discovered that overtime, a lot of farmers shy away from it.
“This is the time for us to know the importance more with the climate change right now. Climate change is something that is affecting our farmers in a very bad way but if the farms are insured, it help to mitigate or minimise their loss,” she said.
According to NAN, A Representative of Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), Mr Bolaji Folayan, said businesses and entrepreneurs were exposed to risks which include those of production, transportation, financial, storage, market and legal risks.
“Before now, when farmers suffer any loss on their farms, there is no compensation; they are compensated by NEMA and other emergency agencies. Government deemed it fit to create a corporation that will be saddled with responsibility of compensating the farmers with a pool of fund being contributed by the government and also the farmers in what we call premium,’’ Folayan said.
Also speaking, a representative of the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Mr Nelson Idemudia, said NIRSAL was created to address issues contributing to the lackluster and low level of finance and investment for agricultural and agribusiness.
“NIRSAL had been able to increase the number of agric insurance firms to nine to provide more insurance for farmers. We redefine, measure, price and share agribusiness related credit risk. NIRSAL does not give loan or funds directly to farmer but facilitate finance from financial institutions,” he said.
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