NAIC is set to take cattle damage cover, says MD

• Seeks NCARD to prevail on states to pay premium timely

The Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) Mrs Folashade Joseph has hinted that cattle damages insurance cover will now be taken to mitigate losses incurred by farmers due to animals’ invasion destroying farms, just as the corporation has appealed to the states government to ensure timely payment of agricultural subsidy premium for farmers against losses.

NAIC CEO, Mrs Folashade Joseph told technical committee of the 44th National Council of Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD) held last week Wednesday via virtual zoom while responding to a question in that direction from a participant at the physical venue at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.

Mrs. Joseph said that the technical partner of her corporation called (Re-Insurance) has approved for the organization to immediately embark on taking cattle insurance cover to mitigate farmers’ losses from the incidence of animals eating up farms’ produce before harvest. The news received a sounding applause from the stakeholders who said this would go a long way to mitigating farmers/ herdsmen clashes in the country. 

Meanwhile the insurance corporation has presented a memo to NCARD titled ‘’  agricultural insurance- a veritable pillar of support for agricbusiness investments and economic diversification’’, praying for the approval of the council under the chairmanship of the Minister , Alhaji Sabo Nanono to prevail on states government to ensure timely payment of their subsidy premium for farmers so as to mitigate agricultural losses being experienced through natural disasters of climate change and other physical negative impacts.

 Mr. Jerome Olowoyeye who presented the memo on behalf of NAIC, said that utilization of insurance covers is the surest means of ensuring appropriate use of government subsidy for agricultural productivity towards food security and wealth creations, adding that states government timely payment of premium which many of them have not paid since 2011 into the insurance pool would guarantee direct support to farmers as they are being secured against agricultural produces losses to natural and unnatural disaster before harvest.  

The memo also demanded that all tiers of government must be doing an aggressive advocacy for agricultural insurance to forestall the catastrophic impact of natural disaster on farmers, saying doing this would save government from losing billions of naira being extended to supporting agricultural development towards food security.

During questions and answers time, the issues why NAIC is not taking insurance cover on livestock like piggery, and the need for compensation to farmers whose farms are destroyed by cattle were well answered by the NAIC MD, Mrs. Joseph through zoom saying the corporation has concluded plan to be taking insurance cover for farms being destroyed by cattle after full consideration to all the technicalities involved with the approval of the other re-insurance partner. 

While, Mr. Olowoyeye responding to piggery question, said that farmers must be ready to pay a premium of 2.5% as against the 1% to secure the farms for NAIC to be able to ensure such insurance coverage because of the nature of negative impact of disease like African swine fever with its contagiousness potential to bring about general losses of animals

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The memo called the attention of the council to the huge amount of investment being lost on yearly basis in agricultural ventures due to non insurance by many stakeholders with emphasis on flood, drought and avian influenza, adding that the current downturn in the country’s economic situation and the consequential note to conserve resources and curb unnecessary wastages called for promotion or advocacy for the need for agricultural insurance cover.