Nationa crop insurance due for 2015 #adesina

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr.
Akinwumi Adesina, has said that the Federal Government
would launch national crop insurance for farmers by 2015.
Adesina, who disclosed this in Abuja at a workshop on
water management solutions for flood-recession and dry
season agriculture in Nigeria, explained that the programme
was intended to insure farmers against shocks and losses
from weather related events.
He assured that the programme was designed to make
farmers to "farm with peace", adding that farmers and
communities must be protected from economic losses due
to floods.
According to him, "Our goal is to insure no less 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
floods."
To mitigate the negative impact of climate change on
agricultural productivity, he stressed the need to increase
the number of agro-meteorological stations in the country
to allow for more accurate prediction of rainfall and weather
patterns for farmers.
"Instead of general rainfall forecasts, we should move to
season rainfall forecasts, which should be easily available
to farmers on their mobile phones.
"Such forecasts will also help with disaster planning.
Farmers must be protected from the negative impacts of
climate change with appropriate institutional risk
management policies, especially crop insurance and
strategic grain reserves, which reduce risk exposure and
vulnerability to food security shocks," he said.
Speaking on the partnership between Nigeria and the
International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the
minister assured that Nigeria would put in place flood
inundation mapping, risk assessment, and forecasting tools.
Adesina also said the partnership would support Nigeria to
determine flood inundation patterns, plan pre- flood and
post-flood management systems and improve on disaster
planning and management.
"The Integrated Agricultural Water Management solutions,
which IWMI will deploy in Nigeria over the next three years,
are aimed at increasing agricultural production and food
security through sustainable water management by creating
the right infrastructural, institutional and financial
environment for farmers to profitably engage in flood
recession and dry season agriculture and to thrive in the
face of the challenges of climate change.
"The focus will be on three states, Kogi, Benue and
Anambra. The project will be in two phases. The first phase
will focus on creating an evidence-based framework on
assessing floods and flooding patterns for decision-making
purposes.
"Through the concerted efforts of my Ministry and
International Water Management Institute, we will utilise
Agricultural Water Management solutions to improve food
security through greater knowledge of our water resources
and management and improve crop planning and scale up
cropping intensity.