Flood: Ministry To Establish Weather Insurance Scheme For Farmers

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has concluded plans to set up a Weather Index Crop Insurance scheme for farmers across the country.

The Minister, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja while briefing newsmen on the World Food Day celebration.

Adesina said that if the rainfall pattern fell below a particular level that was considered? not good for the physiological performance of a crop, then the farmer would get paid.

He explained that this meant that the crop would either not perform well or it had failed, adding that the index would know the average rainfall of the area.

“To be able to do the weather index insurance, we need very good agro-meteorological data and we need to have in place good weather stations.’’

On how to pay for the insurance, he said that Federal Government would provide subsidies to allow farmers to access weather index insurance premiums.

He noted that this initiative had been tried in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and India.

He stressed that the ministry would find an insurance mechanism that would work for the Nigerian farmer.

In her remarks, Dr Louise Setshwaelo, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Representative in Nigeria, commended the Federal Government for its actions to since the flood broke out.

She noted that the recently released global food security index report revealed that scores of people were still hungry.

“About 870 million people globally are still under nourished and as far as sub-Saharan Africa is concerned, we have not made much progress in terms of food security.’’

?Setshwaelo observed that the global report also showed that the whole world was on the right track to reducing? global hunger while Africa was still far behind.

She appealed to African leaders to do more than what they were doing in terms of food security.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the UN had earmarked Oct. 16 of every year to mark the World Food Day.