NAIC: our aim is to protect farmers

The provision of subsidy for agricultural insurance premium is aimed at protecting farmers and complementing the efforts of the Federal Government on financial inclusion, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), Mrs. Folashade Joseph, has said.

Joseph, who spoke with reporters in Johannesburg, South Africa said the corporation is making farmers happy and comfortable.

She said while the Federal Government, through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), is providing soft loans to farmers, NAIC is complementing this effort by insuring farmers, to incorporate them in the financial system.

She stressed that financial inclusion ensures that more people, especially those in the informal sector, were brought into the financial system, to aid proper economic planning, enhances savings culture and increases funds in the banking sector, which contributes to the healthiness of the entire financial sector value-chain.

She said: “Agriculture contributes more to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). NAIC is specifically created to cater for the entire agricultural value-chain of which farmers are major. We aim to boost the economy through agriculture. Agriculture has contributed much to the GDP in the last few years.’’

“On the part of NAIC, 80 per cent of farmers are engaging in small scale farming. And it is very important to take care of these farmers against risks that may arise from farming. The farmers are financially included because they access loans. Though federal government has done a lot through CBN in this regards, it is our role to support this process and make farmers happy and comfortable.

To increase the number of agricultural insurance policyholders, the corporation had, and is still embarking on sensitisation of farmers across the country on the need to protect their farmlands, and equipments through agric insurance products offered by NAIC.”

Listing the barriers of insurance penetration which is also affecting adoption of agric insurance products, she said, culture, religious beliefs are challenges as the small hold farmers do believe everything is an act of God.