NIRSAL to insure 3.6m Nigeria farmers

With the devastating effects of the rains, Nigeria Incentive -Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) plans to insure 3.6 million by 2026.

NIRSAL has developed insurance products for 1,476,289 smallholder farmers who subscribed to NIRSAL Plc’s insurance products.

The agric insurance will be executed through the development of insurance products as Hybrid Multi-Peril Crop Indemnity-Index Insurance product- HM-II.

NIRSAL’s Managing Director Aliyu Abdulhameed spoke at the launch of the product in Abuja.

The insurance cover, he said “speaks to the needs of smallholder farmers and the increase in the number of insurance companies that underwrite agricultural risks”.

He noted that in developing agric insurance products, NIRSAL collaborated with public and private sector underwriters.

NIRSAL he said had worked with the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to develop “an index-based insurance product- the NIRSAL Area Yield Index Insurance product (AYII), which guarantees the income of the smallholder farmer by covering expected yield”.

AYII was piloted during the 2017 wet season farming, covering 17,000 farmers and 10,000 hectares with a harvest value of 3 billion naira.

It also developed NIRSAL Comprehensive Index Insurance product (NCII) covering yield risk, market price risk, and life insurance.

Yusuf Yila, director of Development Finance Department at Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said CBN had adopted NIRSAL’s AYII products and looked forward to deploying the HM-II.

Managing Director/Chief Executive of Royal Exchange General Insurance Benjamin Agili said by partnering NIRSAL, “we developed the Hybrid Index Insurance, ‘’to protect smallholder farmers from loss and … permanent disability or death…’’

Mr. Sunday Thomas, commissioner for Insurance, represented by Mr. Leonard M. Akah, NAICOM’s director of Policy and Regulation, said in  2017, NIRSAL met with NAICOM to address the need for implementation of Index- Based Agric Insurances to be offered by insurance companies licensed by the commission.

He said “the commission granted “No Objection” to Royal Exchange General lInsurance Company to introduce Multi-Peril Crop Insurance and Weather Index Insurance products…’’

Thomas noted that to support the Federal Government’s efforts in the promotion of agriculture and economic diversification, such partnerships between NAICOM, NIRSAL and REGIC… have become inevitable.

- The Nation