- Safiu Kehinde
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Abdullahi, has disclosed N12 billion loss by ginger famers to epidemic disease in 2023.
Abdullahi made this disclosure at the Agricultural Insurance train – the – trainer workshop held today in Abuja.
The disease identified as ginger blight left Kaduna ginger farmers counting their loss following its outbreak in 2023.
Narrating the 2023 experience, Abdullahi said that the farmers lost over 90 per cent of their total harvest for the season while only few of the farmers who registered with the ministry’s insurance protection scheme were awarded monetary compensation for their loss.
“” Only a few of those ginger farmers who took our insurance protection received monetary compensation for their harvest losses.
” These set of farmers could boast of returning to their farms without 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.
Meanwhile, with the increase in flood cases especially across northern states Abdullahi warned against the impact of existential threat of climate changed on food production.
He, however, disclosed ongoing plan by the Ministry to collaborate with National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and PULA Advisors to incorporate Agricultural Insurance into the National Agricultural Growth Scheme Agro- Pocket (NAGS-AP) programme.