The Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA) has recommended livestock farmers to obtain insurance from the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) in order to recoup their losses in the case of disease outbreaks.
NAIC is a Federal Government insurance firm that was established primarily to provide agricultural risk insurance to Nigerian farmers.
Dr Olutoyin Adetuberu, National President of the organisation, and Ifeanyi Ogbu, Chairman of the FCT Chapter, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
In response to a question about compensation for farmers whose animals were infected with diseases, Ogbu stated that there is none at the moment.
He advised farmers to take use of the NAIC services offered by the government and insure their farms.
“We recall that during the era of Avian Influenza, there used to be compensation to animal farms that were affected based on WHO recommendation that such farms should be burnt and closed.
“Over time, some people who do not have farms at all will be claiming that their animals have been affected, hence compensation was stopped and anybody that has farms are encouraged to take agric insurance from NAIC.
“Farmers can now insure whatever they have so that if there is any case of loss as it were, they can be insured and their farms restored,” he said.
Adetuberu described the insurance outlet as the only way farmers’ earnings could be guaranteed since there was no compensation in place .
She, however, appealed to the Federal Government to consider compensation to farmers whose animals were certified unfit for consumption in abattoirs.
According to her, the government can look into the plight of poor farmers and then come up with a compensation scheme.
The president identified one of the implications of nonpayment of compensation to farmers in the case of outbreak of diseases as denial of access to veterinarians to inspect affected farms by the owners.
She said: “The farmers will rush to sell the moribund or dead animals to the populace which is very dangerous to the populace and the nation in general, because unwholesome meat may pass through the populace for consumption,”.
Also, a herder, Abdullahi Mohammed who described the process of insurance and disease reporting as cumbersome, said he would rather prefer selling any of his animals laden with disease than exploring the services of NAIC.
According to him, the government should compensate any farmer whose farms are affected by either Anthrax or any other diseases which is the surest way to curb the spread of diseases.
He said with compensation in place, farmers would willingly report cases of disease outbreak in their various farms.
