30,000 small farmers registered under Beema Takaful Scheme

MULTAN: The Punjab Agriculture Department has insured 30, 000 registered small famers cultivating cotton, wheat and paddy in nine Punjab districts, including five districts of the south Punjab, under the Beema Takaful Scheme.

Talking to journalists here on Saturday, Agriculture Information Deputy Director Naveed Kahloon said on Saturday that the department was insuring farmers based on 10 years crop profile of the districts where crop completely or partially wasted and damaged due to natural calamities. He said that the department had initiated crop insurance in nine selected Punjab districts and the department had insured 30, 000 farmers in four central Punjab districts, including Sahiwal, Faisalabad, Sheikhupura and Narowal, while five other districts were Multan, Lodhran, Rahimyar Khan, Muzaffargarh and Rajanpur.

He said that the department had completed the survey of nine districts to calculate the crops damage during the last 10 years and insured 30,000 farmers in nine districts. He said that the Punjab government had provided Rs 100 on each bag of cotton seed to each registered farmer listed for crop insurance.

He said that the Agriculture Department had estimated 128, 000 small farmers involved in agriculture.

He said that crop insurance had been provided to the farmers in the form of subsidy on premium.

He said that natural calamities were primarily affecting farmers frequently particularly the outbreak of epidemics and man-made disasters such as fire, sale of spurious seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. These factors were playing a key role in production losses and farm income, which had reached to beyond from the control of the farmers, he added.

The condition of the farmers continues to be unstable due to natural calamities and price fluctuations, he maintained. Naveed Kahloon said that crop insurance would stabilise farmers to save their income and investment and guard against disastrous effect of losses due to natural hazards or low market prices.

The crop insurance not only stabilises the farm income but also helps the farmers to initiate production activity after a bad agricultural year, he added.