Maputo 10% Declaration on Agriculture, Nigerian's Perspective

Agric Budget

Stakeholders in the agriculture sector have lamented the poor budgetary allocation to the sector, which at 1.9% falls below the 10% declared by African heads of state in Maputo in 2003.


At the Second Ordinary Assembly of the African Union in July 2003 in Maputo, African Heads of State and Government endorsed the “Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security in Africa”. The declaration contained several important decisions regarding agriculture, but prominent among them was the “commitment to the allocation of at least 10 percent of national budgetary resources to agriculture and rural development policy implementation within five years”.

Tagged the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), it was designed to be Africa’s policy framework for agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security and nutrition, economic growth and prosperity for all.

However, 13 years on, Nigeria is yet to implement CAADP as it has continued to allocate less than 3% of its budget to agriculture, a situation that has seen Africa’s most populated country with an arable land of about 33.02% becoming a major food importer. The prospects of agricultural growth were high at Independence but the discovery of oil has dampened interest in agriculture.

Some of the stakeholders, who spoke with Independent, lamented that it is just as if the government is paying lip service to diversifying the economy through agriculture as it is not seen in its action to fund the sector.
They also argued that the political will is still not there, as they are not seeing any link with what the Federal Government is saying as to diversifying the economy through agriculture.

Emmanuel Ijewere, National Coordinator of Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), stated that it should be looked at from the African perspective where all states in Africa came to the conclusion of putting in a minimum of 10 percent of her budgetary allocation to agriculture.

Ijewere added that Nigeria voluntarily signed the Maputo agreement of 10 percent minimum that it has never been able to get there.

“I agreed that this government has budgetary constraints but every effort should be made to prioritize agriculture not like what it was before when there was oil. No government has put in anything up to three percent, the highest we have had was 2.3 percent, this one is about 2 percent or 1.9 percent, therefore, agriculture is not been taken serious,” he said, adding that the Ministry of Agriculture is not seen as a major and important ministry, noting that government should first as a policy take anything that has to do with agriculture very seriously.

“I cannot see any link myself to what they have said in terms of prioritising agriculture, maybe we don’t have big voices, we don’t have noisemakers to support agriculture. There are some other industries in Nigeria that have very influential people in the National Assembly and in government to do that. How many people who are involved in farming can afford to go and contest an election even into the state Assembly, so we can’t.” he added.

Wale Oyekoya, former chairman of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), agric sector, described what was budgeted for the sector as disappointing.

He said as a nation which is struggling economically, a lot ought to have been budgeted for the sector.

“To me it is very disappointing because we are expecting a nation like us that is really struggling economically, we are supposed to budget a whole lot of the budget close to 10 percent of the African Union agreement to boost our agriculture”, he noted.

“We are expecting something at least like half of that, if you look at the percentage given to agriculture this time, it is not even up to 2 percent so where is the money to even cater for the sector,” he pointed out.
He said there is supposed to be a revolution when it comes to agriculture because most of the funds coming to the sector are not really coming to the farmers.

“We have people we call political farmers or portfolio farmers who do not really help the nation, we have so many real farmers that are not really benefitting, all these kind of problems keep on reoccurring every day, so this budget allocation to agriculture is extremely low,” he added.

On government stand on diversifying through agriculture, Oyekoya said he is not seeing any connection with what they are saying and what was budgeted for the sector.

“I still say the political will is still not there yet, until every farmer in this country can be engaged. Most farmers in this country are not engaged, they are not encouraged. You will see that if they want to buy something in the ministry they will take from the money, this is how the money will go and at the end of the day farmers will not get anything to improve their farms.”

Sayina Riman, National President of Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN), said he would not comment on the budget yet, noting that he only heard of a proposal made for agriculture he is yet to confirm from the ministry and the minister of agriculture.

“The truth about it is that agriculture has always been the mainstay of our economy and for us to be able to take advantage of our areas of comparative advantage is to give it to the true stakeholders.

“From what we hear the special purpose vehicle for agriculture now, we are beginning to hear that some Abuja farmers are already assessing it and that is not agreeable with the entire value chain of cocoa and the minister himself has not called the true stakeholders of cocoa for the way forward.”
“Cocoa, which is the highest foreign exchange earner in the country after oil, is the focal point of the Buhari administration,” he said.

In principle the allocation to Agriculture might not conform to Maputo declaration, but at a wider look as being on concurrent list of budgetary allocation between the Federal, states and local governments cum other sources of financial support from International donor partners, one may be tempted to believe that the funding of the sector is not much of problem like the implementation process of the sector' policies.

I believe a detailed policy evaluations of the past programmes and projects of the sector with be able to sufficiently analysis whether the sector is poorly or adequately funded, but as is it, i may not want to follow a general thinking of Maputa 10% declaration on Agriculture without proper evaluation of the past programmes and projects in order to ascertain achievement level cum expenditure. I will rather advise that this administration properly carry out the evaluation for appropriate funding that will not allow wastages.