Nigeria has reduced its budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector by 20 percent from N173 billion in 2018 to N138 billion in 2019 despite government efforts to attain food security.
Experts in the agric sector say that the N138 billion which comprises of both recurrent and capital expenditure for the sector in 2019 cannot at the barest minimum, address issues relating to mechanisation, rehabilitation of irrigation facilities and dams, extension services, insurance, fertiliser subsidy, research and development, among others.
The experts say that the proposed allocation is an indication that the government is not ready to address the lingering issues limiting players in the agric sector.
“We need to fund our research institutes properly to develop improved seeds, rehabilitate our irrigation facilities and dams, provide extension service amongst other key issues,” said Anga Sotonye, publicity secretary, National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN).
“With N138 billion budget allocation for the sector in an inflationary economy, we definitely cannot achieve anything with it for agric,” said Sotonye.
He stated that if the government is serious about diversification through agric, the budgetary allocation must be increased so that the sector can contribute more to the country’s GDP.
At present, the government is faced with reviving a sector challenged by poor storage facilities and processing practices as well as farming often mainly done with hand tools.
Available statistics show that Nigeria is one of the least mechanised farming countries in the world with the country’s tractor density put at 0.27 hp/ hectare which is far below the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recommended tractor density of 1.5 hp/ hectare.
Nigeria is 132nd out of the 188 countries worldwide measured by FAO / United Nations in terms of the number of tractors in the country.
Elesa Bitrus Yakubu, National president, Tractors Owners and Operators Association of Nigeria(TOOAN) while commending the government’s for having increased it in the previous agric budget, added that the FG needs to adequately provide fertilisers to farmers and provide trainings for them on the best practices.
“The need for mechanisation is very important too and government needs to provide infrastructure by rehabilitating our dams and irrigations,” Yakubu said.
Nigeria is one of the signatories of the Maputo Agreement to assign 10 percent of the entire budget to agriculture, but the N138 billion for 2019 only accounts for 1.5percent of the entire N8.8trillion budget.
This shows that the country’s agric allocation is still very far from the Maputo declaration.
Josephine Okojie
