The Significance of Agricultural Crop Insurance to Farmers: Nigeria in Perspective

Insurance is an arrangement that is designed to mitigate the effect of loss, injury or damage resulting from the occurrence of the hazard insured against or covered by the insurance policy. The essence of insurance is to reduce the fear of loss and to encourage people to carry on with their businesses and venture into their desired endeavors without fear of total loss. The subject- matter of insurance is quite wide and the risks insured against or usually covered under insurance policies are also wide. Agricultural crop insurance is designed to encourage farmers to invest in agriculture without fear of total loss that may arise from damage or destruction of their crop by pests, insects, erosion, flood, drought, fire, man or animal incursion into their farmlands, etc. The question that begs for answer then is why do most farmers in Nigeria and in many parts of the world fail to take advantage of the agricultural crop insurance scheme?. It has been discovered that factors such as lack of awareness, ignorance, inability to pay premium, fear of not being indemnified in appropriate circumstances and general apathy on the part of most farmers accounts for the low rate of subscription to agricultural crop insurance scheme. The main objective of this paper is among other things, to highlight the importance of agricultural crop insurance to farmers and to recommend effective ways by which farmers can be encouraged to embrace crop insurance scheme. This exercise will also enlighten and educate crop farmers, prospective agriculturists, researchers, educationists and members of the general public on the significance and utilitarian value of taking up an insurance policy or insurance cover for agricultural crop production. Doctrinal approach of research is adopted in this work, basically relying on the primary and secondary sources of data from relevant sources such as statutes, textbooks, and online publications. It is recommended that very effective means of advertising, publicizing, and educating farmers on the importance of agricultural crop insurance should be established such as seminars, symposium, workshops and public lectures in order to create more awareness, to educate and to enlighten farmers on the availability and importance of agricultural crop insurance scheme.