Some public organizations in Nigeria have begun to look inwards to see how to ward off further clashes between herdsmen and farmers in rural communities. To this end, the National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, has commenced the implementation of Agricultural Insurance products in 10 northern states in a bid to give farmers access to loans administered by federal government agencies.
The Commissioner for Insurance, Mohammed Kari, who announced this during a workshop in Abuja, said that in partnership with the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, underwriters are currently exploring innovative insurance products for livestock to help stem the tide of the clashes between herdsmen and farmers.
Alhaji Kari said, “Last year, Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, working with technical advisers and in collaboration with NAICOM, initiated the inception of an ‘Area Yield Index Insurance’ starting from the rainy season. The initiative is driven on the ‘Anchor Borrowers Programme’ of the Central Bank of Nigeria’ financing window of over $1.0bn but will later extend to other financing options”.
The NAICOM Commissioner expatiated, “A pilot implementation of Index-based Agricultural Insurance products in the 2017 farming season, in 10 northern states and for four crops – rice, maize, soya and sorghum – was successfully launched in 2017.”
According to him, the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation, with 50 per cent government premium subsidies, is supposed to provide agricultural indemnity insurance covering crop, livestock, poultry and aquaculture.
Experts believe that when the measure comes on stream, the incidence of clashes between herdsmen and farmers would be checked.
