Potato farmers partner NAIC on crops, life insurance


Potato Farmers Association of Nigeria (POFAN) says it is partnering with the Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) to establish an insurance cover for its members across the country.
Chief Daniel Okafor, the National President of the association spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.
According to him, the insurance will cover both agricultural produce and lives of its members.
Okafor said that the initiative was as a result of losses recorded by some members of the association, especially during natural disasters like floods.
He said the insurance was necessary following the commencement of the rainy season.
“We are trying to provide all potato farmers with insurance cover.
“NAIC is working with us in the process to achieve this.

“Some of our farmers have died while some lost their produce. The insurance is what we are discussing now.
“The insurance policy will also cover the lives and the agricultural produce of our farmers to ensure they are compensated in the event of flood,’’ he said.
The national president said the association was also supporting its members with soft loans to enable them improve production during the wet season farming.
According to him, we have shared them into cooperatives, given them loans and also off-take whatever they produce.

“We give them about N150, 000 to farm one hectare of potato.
“What they usually get after the harvest will be about N400, 000 when they harvest. We then collect the capital from there and share the profit.

“This is just to encourage our members to do more, especially for farmers that do not have raw cash at hand,’’ Okafor said.

He appealed to the Federal Government to urgently commence the distribution of farm inputs to farmers across the country to enable them prepare for the wet season farming.

The national president expressed regret over the current hike in prices of food items, adding that the prompt distribution of farm inputs would encourage bumper harvest and food security in the country.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomato disease outbreak: Institute appeals for research funding

The National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, has appealed for funding to carry out research and create awareness on the tuta absoluta pest on tomatoes. The Institute’s Head of Vegetable Programme, Dr Olagorite Adetula, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Friday that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem to save the economy. Adetula said the institute needed money to do surveillance survey of the pest/damage, ascertain the impact of the damage and proffer solution for eradicating the pest. She appealed to the Federal Government to help the institute get pheromones to lure and trap the pests and distribute to farmers. ``Spraying insecticides is not the best, the pest has high production rate, some of them can escape while spraying it and they will be resistant to the insecticide thereby causing us more cost. ``The pheromones can be used for six to eight weeks before changing it, it is very effective, the pest has short life cycle, wit
Read more

10,000 women farmers to be engaged in ECOWAS rice project – official

Image
 Mr Richard Olafare, the President, Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (SEEDAN) says 10,000 women will be engaged in the recently inaugurated Rice Seed Up-Scaling Project. This is contained in a presentation on the project made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday. Olafare said 8,000 youths would also be engaged in the scaling project. According to him, the number of women and youths represented 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the 20,000 farmers that will participate in the project. NAN reports that the project is an initiative of the West Africa Seed Programme (WASP) in support of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive Programme that was inaugurated in 2014. Among other objectives, it is targeting the production of 60,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice for Nigeria by December 2017, using 1,200 certified seeds. The project is being implemented by SEEDAN in collaboration with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Re
Read more

NEGPRO project can create more jobs with inclusion of meat production— Badmus

•Tuns Farm leads food safety, quality system audit The Chairman , Tuns Farms Nigeria, Asiwaju Olatunde Badmus, has disclosed that the proposed one million jobs expected to be created through the National Egg Production Scheme (NEGPRO) can be doubled if extended to meat production. He made this known when a team from the office of the Vice President, Federal Ministries of Agriculture, Health and Education at the company’s headquarters in Osogbo, the Osun state capital recently. Olatunde Badmus, while sharing the company’s experience on chicken inclusion in the Osun state’s school meal program which the company has been handling since the introduction of the school feeding program four years ago, said they can achieve so much more in terms of job creation through meat production “As we speak, six state governors among who are Kebbi and Borno, have signalled their government’s preparedness to look into this and have invited TUNS farm to their states to discuss modalities for
Read more