The wrong insurance

Editorial

THE plan to insure expected agricultural produce for 3.6million farmers in the country is steeped in irony. It mocks the failure of government to effectively secure the farmers themselves and the environment in which they operate.

How meaningful is it to insure farmers’ risks concerning agricultural yields and market price when they (farmers) are abandoning their farms for fear of being killed or kidnapped?

The Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) is undertaking the insurance policy in partnership with the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and other insurance firms that underwrite agricultural risks.

According to NIRSAL’s Managing Director, Aliyu Abdulhameed, the insurance policy will be executed through the development of insurance products termed Hybrid Multi-Peril Crop Indemnity Insurance Products (HMII).

Aliyu, who spoke in Abuja during the products’ launch, revealed two of the crucial products which NIRSAL had developed, working with NAICOM. They are: the NIRSAL Area Yield Index Insurance Product (AYII), which, he said, “guarantees the income of the smallholder farmer by covering expected yields” and NIRSAL Comprehensive Index Insurance Product (NCII) covering yield risks, market price risks and life insurance.

An insurance cover of this nature is ordinarily a good gesture because it seeks to mitigate farmers’ irrecoverable losses in the event of inclement weather situations such as flood and risks through market price fluctuations.

However, in the face of the worsening insecurity that is threatening the lives of farmers and their vocation across the land, the policy smacks of putting the cart before the horse.

The farming belt of Northern Nigeria, for instance, is in dire straits because most of the active farming states in the north west particularly are plagued by the murderous activities of ubiquitous bandits. So are the farming communities in north central states as well as those in many states down south, reeling from the siege of herdsmen’s attacks. States in the north east are already tottering under the weight of depredation being perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists and their allies.

Hence, it is a pervasive morass that is seriously threatening the nation’s food security. In many of these communities, some of which are regarded as the nation’s ‘food basket,’ both small and big-time farmers are being forced to abandon their farms owing to the fiendish activities of these villainous elements, who are holed up in thick forests from where they lay siege to the farming communities, abducting and, in many instances, killing at will. Hundreds of farmers and their relations have fallen victim.

States worst hit by this grisly security situation include Zamfara, Katsina, Nasarawa, Niger, Benue, Plateau and Kogi. People in states like Sokoto, Taraba, Gombe, Kaduna and others are also living with the fear of these vile agents who have reduced farming to a scary venture.

In Zamfara State, the recent kidnap of 40 farmers has worsened the already precarious situation. Reacting to the latest in the series of abductions, the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) warned of a potent threat to the nation’s food security if the situation is allowed to fester. The secretary of AFAN, Alhaji Saidu Garkwa, who dropped the hint, lamented that more than 5,000 hectares of farmlands may also go uncultivated this year because of this intractable challenge.

The threat to food security is real. And government needs to address the challenge squarely. Failure to save the farming belt in the north, for example, from the present grave peril arising from the security siege presages serious food crisis because not only is agriculture the region’s mainstay, many Nigerians rely on the grains, vegetables, fruits and other essential produce emanating from the region.

The grim fact is, if the security challenge persists, very soon, there will be no more farms to tend and all the talk of insurance cover for farm produce will be an exercise in futility. As a matter of fact, since food is, needless to say, an essential like water that sustains life, the threat to food security is also a threat to the security of lives. Hence, guaranteeing food security at all times by securing farmers and farmlands ordinarily ought to be government’s cardinal policy.