According to Ken Aghoghovbia, Deputy Managing Director of the African Reinsurance Corporation, Nigeria’s food and agricultural output shortages are projected by the International Trade Administration to be filled by imports worth roughly $10 billion.
In October 2023, Aghoghovbia spoke at the Agriculture Workshop of the Africa Reinsurance Corporation in Lagos.
The two-day event, which was organized in accordance with the International Finance Corporation’s technical assistance provider mandate for the Nigeria Climate Insurance project, brought together significant figures in the country’s farm insurance market.
Establishing a cooperative platform for important industry players, including insurance companies, governmental agencies, farmers’ associations, insurance regulators, financial institutions, input suppliers, and commercial farms, was the workshop’s main goal.
According to Aghoghovbia’s opening remarks, the agricultural sector has suffered from a number of shocks, including flooding and the deterioration of crop and pasture land, despite its GDP contribution.
He listed other barriers to the sector’s growth as the low adoption of contemporary technologies, limited access to funding, and conflicts between herdsmen and nearby farmers.
According to him, these problems have significantly lowered the sector’s output and increased the need for imported food by producing a significant mismatch between the area’s supply and demand for food.
“According to the International Trade Administration, Nigeria needs to import roughly $10 billion in order to make up for its deficiencies in food and agricultural production,” he stated.
“Over the past five years, Nigerian insurance market participants have given agriculture insurance a lot of attention. They have been drawn to this sector by the opportunities presented by the need to modernise and commercialise agriculture production as well as the goal of successive governments to diversify the economy.
“The Nigerian agriculture insurance market has the potential to generate a premium of over $600 million due to its diverse range of agriculture enterprises and its approximately 70 million hectares of land dedicated to agriculture.”
