The National President of Small Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON), Mary Afan has bemoaned the lack of smallholder farmers’ access to agricultural insurance for rural farmers especially women in Nigeria.
Afan stated this at the side line of the Validation of Community Participatory Assessment of Government Expenditure on Agriculture/Community Score Cards on Smallholder Women Farmers Access to Agricultural Insurance Services in Nigeria.
She also said in her words: Insurance is the key major problem to small holder farmers. I’m even surprised that insurance is suppose to cover when you suffer losses in your farm.
“We have alot of problem because most of these insurance companies will not even show or build the capacity of the farmers”.
“As soon as you access fund, what they are interested in is to deduct their percentage which is 2% for the insurance cover and once there’s a problem, may be flood, and after taking picture and showed to them, they will find fault such as you did not build proper dranaiges that is why the disaster happened”.
“In case of animals like poultry, if you told them birds are dying and we are loosing all the birds, they might say you did not give enough ventilation so it is your own negligence”.
