Nigeria: Nigeria: Govt, States to Spend 1.8% of Budgets On Agriculture

The federal and national governments will spend less than two % of their N13.5 trillion total budgets this year on agriculture despite their publicised commitment to the sector, Daily Trust investigations have shown.

Analysis of the 2017 combined spending of the federal and 30 national governments shows that they will spend N254 billion (1.8 %) on agriculture.

This figure is slightly higher than the N196.3 billion (1.6 %) they spent on the sector last year.

About half of these figures would be expended on running the bureaucracies of the agric ministries and their related agencies of forestry, rural development and water resources, part others.

This is happening at a time of the government's much trumpeted determination to move away from oil to agriculture as the mainstay of the economy.

Over the completed years oil prices have continued to fall and plunging the country into recession with states unable to pay salaries of their workforce not to talk of executing capital projects.

Lip service to agric

The 2017 figures for agric, just like last year's, is far cry from the 2003 AU-Maputo Declaration's Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), according to the president of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Arc Kabir Ibrahim.

The Maputo declaration requires African nations to allocate at least 10 % of their annual budgets to agriculture and achieve six % annual increase in agricultural GDP.

CAADP is Africa's policy framework for agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security and nutrition, economic increase and prosperity for all, which Nigeria is a signatory.

In Maputo, Mozambique, in 2003, the African Union (AU) Summit made the initial declaration on CAADP as an integral part of the New Partnership for Africa's Improvment(NEPAD).

President of the Soil Science Society of Nigeria, Professor Victor Chude told Daily Trust that even the Anchor Borrowers Programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria is "still not enough." He urged the National Assembly to double the agric votes.

Other nations that signed the Maputo agreement such as Malawi was investing about 27 %, Zambia, Burundi and Mali (10 %); Niger (13 %); and Sierra Leone (3 %) in agriculture.

Poor agric funding

Of the N7.3 trillion budget for the year, the federal government has voted only N123 billion (1.6 %) for agriculture. Salaries and overheads get N31.7 billion while the remaining N91.6 billion is for capital projects.

The central government budget is slightly higher than the N75.8 billion (1.26 %) it spent on agriculture and rural development last year. N29.6 billion of the all was for bureaucratic expenses, leaving N46.17 billion for agric service.

The federal government has been allocating dismal figures to the sector since 2011. It budgeted 1.8 % in 2011, 1.6 % in 2012, 1.7 % in 2013, 1.4 % in 2014, 0.9 % in 2015 and 1.2 % in 2016.

The 30 states will spend N131 billion (2.1 %) on agriculture out of their N6.2 trillion combined budgets. This represents an increase of about N11billion from last year's N120.53 billion.

Apart from the oil producing states of the Niger Delta, the remaining states have agriculture as the mainstay of their economy.

The 19 northern states spending on agriculture is decreasing even though it's the mainstay of their economy. Out of their combined budgets of N2.4 trillion, the states are spending a paltry sum of N88.4 billion (3.6 %) compared to last year's N97.07 billion, on agriculture.

The southern states total budget for agriculture is N42.2 billion (1.1 %) out of their total budgets of N3.8 trillion this year.

Zone-by-zone analysis

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The northwest zone is spending N43.4 billion on agric out of N1.01 trillion total budgets for the year. This is about two third of the N60.18 billion it spent on the sector in 2016.

Out of its combined budgets of N593.1 billion, the northeast zone has earmarked N24 billion for agriculture. This figure is lower than the N29.62 billion spent on the sector last year.

The northeast dismal figure is coming despite the zone's resolution to increase their agric funding by at least 10 %, three years ago.

At the end of a two-day North-East Economic Summit in Gombe in December 2014, the six states of the zone had agreed to raise the budgets for the agricultural sector from an annual average of four to 10 %, aiming to raise it from an average of N24 billion to over N60 billion.

The north central zone's budget for agric is N21.2 billion out of its combined budgets of N781.5 billion. The zone spent N7.27 billion on the sector the previous year.

Of the south-south region's cumulative spending of N1.8 trillion, only N13.1 billion was earmarked for agric. It spent only N10.94 billion on the sector last year.

The south-western states of Lagos, Oyo and Ogun figures for agriculture is N21 billion. Data from Ekiti, Ondo, and Osun are not available. The zone has a total budget of N1.5 trillion.

The states of Imo, Anambra and Enugu in the southeast have earmarked only N9.1 billion for agriculture against last year's N2.32 billion. There are no figures for Abia, Ebonyi and Imo states. The zone has a combined budget of N581 billion.

Agric-friendly states

Available data analysed by Daily Trust shows that only two states allocated two-digit figure for agric. They are Sokoto (N14.6 billion) and Ogun (N11.6 billion). These are the same states that voted these high even last year. In 2016, Sokoto voted N14.96 billion and Ogun N10.2 billion.

Kebbi National which voted N12.5 billion for the sector last year hasn't from presently on presented its 2017 budget.

States with above N5 billion budgets for agric are Kogi (N8 billion), Katsina (N8 billion), Akwa Ibom (N7.4 billion), Borno (N7 billion), Bauchi (N6.7 billion), Kano (N6.6 billion), Jigawa (N6.1 billion), Yobe (N5.7 billion), Anambra (N5.4billion) and Plateau (N5.1 billion).

Unfriendly agric states

States with the least budgets for agric include Enugu (N465 million), Bayelsa (N535million), Edo (N1.1 billion), Kwara (N1.13 billion), Nasarawa (N3 billion), Imo (N3.2 billion), Zamfara (N3.5 billion), Bayelsa (N4 billion), Taraba (N4.4 billion), Kaduna (N4.6 billion), Oyo (N4.6 billion) and Lagos (N4.7 billion).

Budget too inadequate

An Abuja- based agronomist, Aliyu Samaila, said "there should have been a conscious and elaborate effort to increase dry season production but I did not see anything in the budget reflecting that."

An extra missing link in the budget, according to him, is farmers-herders crisis which "has not been properly captured. The Brazilian grasses said to be planted in the grazing reserves are still from presently on to be imported and the lands are as well from presently on to be acquired for the grazing reserves."

"In the Green Alternative Policy presented to the Senate in 2016, it talked about critical intervention in the critical sectors of the economy, this government doesn't seem to address that because there is nothing outlined in terms of conference the seeds needs of the farmers," Samaila said.

Professor Chude said states have the responsibility of feeding their citizens. "States must ensure that the federal government's policy of two crops per national succeeded. It is the surest way of ending recession and ensuring food security," he said.

Arc Ibrahim said the allocation of N12 billion price chain products by the federal government if properly applied will drive the sector to prosperity.

He said if other states will neglect the sector, the 19 northern states "have to embrace and replace the dignity of agriculture by providing soft loans and conducive environment for farmers to participate."