Following the 2012 flooding which destroyed some crops and farmland leading to low productivity and loss of crops to farmers, the Federal Government is set to launch a national crop insurance for farmers.

This was made known by the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, in Abuja, during a workshop on water management solutions for flood recession and dry season agriculture in Nigeria.

Adesina said the programme, which would start from 2015 and targeted at 10 million farmers, would insure farmers against shocks and losses from weather-related events.

“Our goal is to insure no fewer than 10 million farmers. We will also design and implement a flood disaster payment policy that will protect farmers, communities and states from economic losses due to flood,” Adesina said.

He also stated that water must be managed efficiently to improve production, stressing that water would be the most limiting factor affecting food production.

“We must improve the efficiency with which we use water and get more grains per drop of water. To achieve this, I believe we must focus on small scale water management system, not just the large scale irrigation schemes,” he said.

Adesina added that “small-scale water management systems are more cost-effective, easier to implement, reaches millions of farmers, have greater impacts on expanding food production and food security and empowers rural community.”

Speaking on International Water Management Institute (IWMI) collaboration in Nigeria, Adesina said the project would be in two phases. The first phase, he explained, would focus on creating an evidence-based framework on assessing floods anda flooding patterns for decision making purposes.

Source - http://tribune.com.ng/