The Federal Government has explained that Nigerian ginger farmers incurred losses amounting to N12 billion due mainly to the disastrous disease epidemic that destroyed their crops in 2023.
Sen. Aliyu Abdullahi, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, who gave this explanation at the Agricultural Insurance train – the – trainer workshop earlier today (Thursday, August 22) in Abuja, highlighted the incidence of the 2023 wet farming season, when ginger farmers in Kaduna suffered immensely from the outbreak of the ginger blight disease.
Disclosing that the farmers lost over 90 per cent of their total harvest for the season, Abdullahi said only “a few of those ginger farmers who took our insurance protection received monetary compensation for their harvest losses.”
” This set of farmers could boast of returning to their farms with little or no financial assistance, unlike their uninsured counterparts who had to dip into their meagre savings to be able to continue farming.
” That is some food for thought and something that we all have to bear in mind, as we are at all times one or two bad harvest seasons away from losing our food supplies,” he said.
Abdullah said that the 2024 flood outlook released by the ministry of water resources and sanitation, has alerted 148 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in 31 States as high flood-risk areas, adding that the report in the first quarter of the year said that 249 LGAs in 36 States and the FCT fall within moderate flood-risk areas.
“In simple terms, 397 LGAs out of the total 774 LGAs in Nigeria, representing over 51 per cent of our farming areas, are at risk of flooding.
“We are witnessing the clear and present existential threats of climate change and its impact on our local food systems,” he said.
Abdullahi, however, assured that the Ministry has made plans to partner with NAIC and PULA Advisors to incorporate Agricultural Insurance into the National Agricultural Growth Scheme Agro- Pocket (NAGS-AP) programme, noting that it has become evident that climate change is real, thereby making it imperative to integrate insurance as a key component of the NAGS programme to ensure sustainability and food security.
According to the minister, the NAGS-AP programme which commenced in the 2023 dry season with wheat cultivation, has resulted in bountiful harvest.
