Govt failure is reason farmers cannot access insurance scheme – NAIC: The National Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) has disclosed that the failure of the Kwara State government to pay its counterpart fund of the national insurance scheme inhibited smallholder farmers from accessing the benefits since 2015.
The branch manager of the corporation in the state, Olatunji Mohammed, said this in Ilorin during the dissemination of a report on community scorecards on smallholder women farmers access to agricultural insurance services in Nigeria.
Mohammed explained that no farmers group either through a cooperative or government had registered for agricultural insurance scheme in the state.
He urged farmers accusing the corporation of illegal deductions from their facilities for farming to always demand for NAIC form.
According to him, only corporate farming organisations and individual farmers are clients of the corporation in the state.
Mohammed, who enumerated the benefits of insurance to farmers, said that the corporation indemnifies client for agricultural losses resulting from natural disaster.
The report advocated aggressive execution of awareness creation about the Government Agricultural Insurance (GAI) scheme in Kwara among other states.
It also called for the involvement of the end users of GAI services, who are smallholder women farmers, in the design planning and implementation of the programme.
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Meanwhile, no fewer than 16,000 rural women in Kwara State are to access the N160 million Aliko Dangote Foundation Micro-Grants.
This is because the state government has met all requirements governing the disbursement of the grant.
The Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer, Zouera Youssoufou, in a letter of offer and acceptance extolled the leadership style of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.
This grant is meant for rural women living in the 16 local government areas of the state. Each beneficiary will be given N10,000 while each Local Government is entitled to 1,000 beneficiaries, according to the letter.
The implementation will be coordinated by a state committee as approved Governor AbdulRazaq with representatives of Aliko Dangote Foundation.
The guidelines governing data capturing, disbursement and monitoring were clearly stated by the Foundation.
While appreciating the gesture, AbdulRazaq said, “This type of intervention can only come from a patriotic Nigerian with interest in adding value to lives of our rural dwellers.
“This administration will not rest on its oars at bringing succour to the good people of the State by latching on its goodwill within the county and beyond.”