By Favour Nnabugwu

The Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) paid a whopping N1.7biilion claims to over 5,000 farmers in two years

A breakdown of it showed that the Corporation paid N856million in 2019 and N848 million as claims to its insured farmers in the 2020.

The Managing Director of NAIC, Mrs. Folashade Joseph said the claims were paid to the Corporation’s clients to cover losses incurred by them in the course of doing business.

Joseph enjoined agricultural investors and lending institutions to continue to partner NAIC to realize the food security agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari.

He said the amount was shared among 5 million farmers who suffered various setbacks in their farms as a result of natural course.

The scheme was launched in 1987 by federal government to restore the confidence and productivity of Nigerian farmers who suffered losses as a result of natural disaster such as flood, drought, pest and diseases.

She explained that the essence of the sensitization is to let the farmers known and understand exactly what NAIC does, the importance of insurance, and make them understand how insurance works, how they can access NAIC products and services, processing their claims, and what they need.

Agribusiness is evolving fast and so many risks are being thrown up, many new participants are coming into the business of agriculture, and the risks are on the increase if you look at them across the value chain there is no so many participants so we need to keep sensitizing the farmers and let them know we are serving them, and we need to know from them on how to serve them.

“Our assurance to farmers is that when they are insured and they suffered for any of the products insured including natural disasters and whatever they will get paid for their losses, and that is the purpose of insurance and setting up NAIC. Our motor is ‘Plowing the Farmer Back to Business, Plowing the Farmers into Prosperity’, and we settle claims.”

NAIC currently deals with thousands of farmers (Small, Medium, and Large scale farmers) across the country, which NAIC serves farmers with investment as little as N100, 000, and at the same time serves multinational farmers. In terms of reach out to farmers, it cuts across.

“The response of farmers has been fantastic because they have realized that every business needs insurance, and agric too is a business, and we see it as a business and there is risk in all that we do.