Nigeria ginger farmers lost N12 billion in 2023

The federal government says that Nigerian ginger farmers incurred losses amounting to N12 billion due to the disastrous disease epidemic that destroyed their crops in 2023. The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Abdullahi, stated this at the Agricultural Insurance “train the trainer” workshop on Thursday in Abuja. He highlighted the incidents of the 2023 wet farming season, where ginger farmers in Kaduna suffered immensely from the outbreak of the ginger blight disease. Mr Abdullahi said the farmers lost over 90 per cent of their total harvest for the season. “Only a few of those ginger farmers who took our insurance protection received monetary compensation for their harvest losses. “These set of farmers could boast of returning to their farms without little or no financial assistance, unlike their uninsured counterparts who had to dip into their meagre savings to be able to continue farming. “That is some food for thought and something that we all have to ...