Agricultural experts have described the N92 billion budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector in the 2017 annual budget as grossly inadequate.
They have, therefore, advocated proper monitoring and tracking of the allocation in order for it to achieve the thrust of the present administration’s agricultural policy.
Speaking with The Point in Ilorin, the Senior Programme Officer, Centre for Community Empowerment and Poverty Eradication, Ayuba Akindele, said that the allocation signaled a not too good future for Nigeria as it could not change the face of agriculture as expected.
Akindele, an Action-Aid International-trained agricultural budget tracker and member, Public Finance of Agricultural Projects, also chided the government for reneging on its promises for the sector.
President Muhammadu Buhari was quoted as saying, “Agriculture remains at the heart of our efforts to diversify the economy and the proposed allocation to the sector this year is at historic high of N92 billion.”
Akindele, however, said that a government that rode into prominence on the basis of promises to diversify the economy, with a focus on agriculture, should not have allocated such a paltry sum to drive the sector.
He said, “Comparatively, the N92 billion benchmark, which is not up to 1.5 percent of the total budget totaling over N7 trillion has further pauperised and relegated agriculture to the background in Nigeria.
“For instance, I do not also see any linkage between the budget sum allocated to the sector and the Federal Government Green Alternative policy. There is no correlation at all and the target set towards empowering youths, women farmers, smallholder farmers and commercial farmers alike, to thrive in agribusiness cannot be met as it were.”
On the 10 per cent Maputo declaration agreement, the expert added that successive governments in Nigeria had stylishly withdrawn from committing themselves to the charter of agreement, signed in Mozambique in 2003 during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure.
“During the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, some of us in conjunction with the civil society organisations, engaged Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, former Minister of Agriculture, on the need for government to respect the Maputo Agreement, as a signatory,” Akindele said.
Speaking in the same vein, the Coordinator, Organisation for the Sustenance of the Nigerian Environment, who is also a budget tracker, Angela Okoye, condemned the amount appropriated for the agricultural sector in the 2017 budget.
Okoye described it as a far cry from what was recommended by the Maputo Accord. “Even though Buhari has consistently reiterated that agriculture is a major area of focus to drive the economy to recovery from the present recession, I doubt if the amount budgeted can do any magic,” she said.
