Assessment of farmer’s awareness of agricultural insurance packages: evidence from “Farming is our pride” communities of Zamfara State, Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract Agricultural insurance has been one of the most crucial instruments in modern agricultural value chain financing. This study assesses farmer’s awareness of agricultural insurance packages available in the farming communities of Zamfara State. The study uses a primary source of data collected through a structured questionnaire. From the ten listed common crops majorly grown in the state, ten farmers were purposively selected from each association to make up 100 farmers for the study. The results showed that the majority of the farmers were males with mean age of 40 years and they were educated. Majority of the farmers were married, most of them having a mean family size of seven persons, average farm size of three hectares, average farm experience of about 16 years and majority (61 %) was combining farming with other occupation. Most of the respondents belonged to a cooperative society with eight years of membership. The binary logistic regression showed that the only factor responsible for farmers' awareness of agricultural insurance packages is membership in a cooperative society. It was concluded that farmers' awareness of agricultural insurance packages is significantly influenced only by membership of cooperative association. It is recommended that policy makers, agricultural insurance firms, and other actors in agricultural activities should put cogent effort in awareness and symposiums on agricultural insurance packages to enable farmers be aware of different agricultural insurance packages that can mitigate the uncertainty they face in their agricultural activities.