INSIDE STORY: How insecurity is turning Benue farmers into IDPs -- and causing spike in price of garri thecable.ng - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thecable.ng Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Caught in the web: Killer herdsmen, floods overrun farms, destroy yields, insurance firms fail to lift hapless farmers The Punch
Published 15 July 2021
With only about five per cent of agricultural crops in Nigeria insured, operators see this as a threat to food security, OKECHUKWU NNODIM writes
The insurance of crops in Nigeria’s agricultural sector is low as most farmers across the country shy away from insuring their crops and produce.
Agro-insurers, government officials as well as farmers believe that it is vital to insure crops, particularly to forestall the devastating impact of adverse weather on crop production.
Operators in the sector see the about five per cent level of agriculture insurance in Nigeria as another potential threat to food security nationwide.
SPECIAL REPORT: Despite huge spending over decades, Nigeria unable to produce enough cassava
Farmers, experts and data explain why cassava, one of Nigeria’s most iconic foods, perennially remains insufficient and expensive.
Grace Ebit, a farmer in Ibogo, Biase Local Government Area of
Cross River State, recalls her childhood with nostalgia. After her father lost his job in the mid-1960s, she dropped out of school and the family struggled to get food.
Her distraught father began to grow cassava and processed garri. That became the turning point.
“The business became big to the extent that we barely had free time to rest. Traders came from different states to buy garri in large quantities from us,” Mrs Ebit said.
• Expand operations in southern states, farmers urge CBN
Farmers and their association have called on the Federal Government to use the Central Bank of Nigeria-managed Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) to deepen food production in the southern states amid insecurity in the north. x
They made the call while commending various interventions of the CBN across the country, especially in rice, maize, cocoa, oil palm, poultry, and cassava production.
As of January 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) claimed it had disbursed N554.61 billion to 2,849,490 farmers to boost food security under its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) beginning from 2015.
Mr Godwin Emefiele, the CBN Governor, had earlier explained that out of the amount, N61.02 billion was disbursed to 353,370 dry season farmers.
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The National President of Nigeria Cassava Growers Association (NCGA), Pastor Segun Adewumi has said that following the fear of herdsmen attack, most farmer leaders now go to farms with police escorts.
He said the situation has deteriorated that most farmers have abandoned their farms despite collecting loans to set up the farms.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, Pastor Adewumi said he has been receiving several reports of attack on his members by suspected Fulani herdsmen while on their farms.
He said they are in talks with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for an additional funding for farmers to provide security for their farms.