NAIC compensate poultry farmers with N80M

Managing Director (MD) of (NAIC) Mr. Bashir Haliru Binji, and
The Kaduna State Commissioner for Agriculture, Manzo Maigari, 

The Managing Director (MD) of Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) Mr. Bashir Haliru Binji, over 100% compensation has been paid to about few farmers that took cover against bird flu attack. He said this during the question and answer session at the Avian Influenza Consultative Meeting recently held at Abuja.

He said even though many states and Federal Government have not paid their mandated counterpart premium he promised his agency’s continuous support to farmers saying thereby appealing to farmers to take issue of premium very serious in the face of doing agriculture as a business. 

Mr. Bashir Haliru Binji said that the agency has been in operation for over 30 years with offices across the 36 states including the FCT, with high response to the need of farmers when it came to premium payment saying “ the agency has also paid a compensation in tune of N80million as a premium to Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) members in Plateau state.

Said he: “last year we spent over 80 million naira. We have not received full premium from Federal and states as only two states have paid their subsidy to farmers while we have paid the 100% compensation to about seven people”

 He stressed that NAIC has deployed various mediums, such as the Poultry Association of Nigeria, Agencies, and news medium to reach out to farmers who still required help across the country, adding that there is still room for improvement from the agency as the numbers of farmers keeps multiplying daily.

Although some stakeholders have acused NAIC of not being known to the members of the public especially farmers’ association saying there is constant need for this awareness creation about payment of premium saying this would encourage members into taking insurance covers.

Mr. Abdurahim Raji from Bauchi state pointed out  that NAIC was not doing enough there by the agricultural insurance policy must be unbundled  so as to allow other insurance companies to partake thereby giving room or freedom of choice to the farmers.

He advocated for the taking of the states’ counterpart funding from the source in order to surmount these challenges of non payment of compensation for poultry farmers as the minister also advised that a joint meeting of the state, PAN and NAIC should be held for more awareness creation.