Less than two percent of the N12.2 trillion total budgets of the federal and state governments will be spent on agriculture this year, Daily Trust investigations have shown.
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.
The federal government's determination is reflected in its 2016 budget which, for the first time in over 40 years, is targeting more revenues from non-oil sources.
Over the past year oil prices have continued to fall and there is no guarantee its volatility will end any soon.
Daily Trust's analysis of the combined expenditure of the federal and 30 state governments shows that they will spend N196.33 billion (1.6 percent) on agriculture.
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, among others.
This figure is far below the 2003 AU-Maputo Declaration's Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which requires African countries to allocate at least 10 percent of their annual budgets to agriculture and achieve 6 percent annual growth in agricultural GDP.
CAADP is Africa's policy framework for agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security and nutrition, economic growth and prosperity for all, which Nigeria is a signatory.
In Maputo, Mozambique, in 2003, the African Union (AU) Summit made the first declaration on CAADP as an integral part of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
President of the National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS), Ken Ukaoha said this poor agric funding contradicted the much touted diversification of the economy and job creation mantra by the two tiers of government in the face of dwindling oil revenue.
Ukaoha told Daily Trust that poor budgeting by governments had suggested that Nigeria only signed the agreement alongside other countries as a face saving measure.
He said Nigeria was still lagging behind other African countries that surpassed the Maputo agreement on agric funding.
He added that Malawi was investing about 27 percent, Zambia, Burundi and Mali (10 percent); Niger (13 percent); and Sierra Leone (3 percent) in agriculture.
Daily Trust analysis of the approved budgets shows that the federal and 36 state governments will spend about N5.33 trillion (43.7 percent of their N12.2 trillion budgets) on payment of salaries and other costs of running their bureaucracies this year.
This is coming at a time of concerns over the swollen recurrent expenditures in the face of dwindling oil revenues and low votes for development projects.
The total amount earmarked for capital projects by the central and the state governments this year is N5.04 trillion (41.3 percent); N3.3 trillion for the states and N1.75 trillion for the federal government.
The total budget carries a combined deficit of N4.5 trillion (36.9 percent), which is made up of N2.3 trillion for the states and N2.2 trillion for the federal government.
The federal government's budget of N6.06 trillion has recurrent expenditure component of N2.65 trillion (44 percent) and N1.75 trillion (29 percent) for capital projects. The remaining balance of N1.66 trillion (27 percent) was for debt servicing and statutory transfers.
Poor agric financing
Of its N6.1 trillion budget, the federal government is spending N75.80 billion (1.26 percent) on agriculture and rural development. N29.63 billion of the amount is for bureaucratic expenses, leaving N46.17 billion for capital projects.
The federal government has been allocating dismal figures to the sector since 2011. It budgeted 1.8 percent in 2011, 1.6 percent in 2012, 1.7 percent in 2013, 1.4 percent in 2014, and 0.9 percent in 2015.
The 30 states will spend N120.53 billion (2 percent) of their total budget of N6.1trillion on agriculture despite their publicised commitment to the sector. Apart from the oil producing states of the Niger Delta, the remaining states have agriculture as the mainstay of their economy.
Due to the continued slide in the crude oil price which resulted to serious cash crunch to the two tiers of government, majority of the state governments have been convoking conferences on how to diversify their economic fortune with agriculture as the focal point.
Though agric is the mainstay of northern economy, the 19 northern states are spending a paltry sum of N97.07 billion on agriculture out of their total budget of N2.5 trillion.
The total budget for the four southern states for agriculture is N23.46 billion for the year. Data for the remaining 10 states was not available at the time of this report.
Zone-by-zone analysis
The northwest zone is spending N60.18 billion of its N1.12 trillion total expenditure on agric.
It is followed by the northeast zone which earmarked N29.62 billion (4.28 percent) for agriculture out of its N676 billion total expenditure.
The six states in the zone - Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba - at the end of a two-day North-East Economic Summit in Gombe in December 2014 had agreed to raise the votes for the agricultural sector from an annual average of four to 10 percent, aiming to raise it from an average of N24 billion to over N60 billion.
The north central zone's approved budget for agric is N7.27 billion out of its cumulative budget of N684 billion.
The south-south region has a total budget of N10.94 billion for agric (minus Delta and Cross River states) of its N1.6 trillion total budget.
The figures for agriculture from the south-western states of Lagos, Ekiti, Osun, Oyo and Ondo are not available. Ogun has voted N10.2 billion for agriculture. The zone has a total budget of N1.4 trillion.
The southeast's states of Anambra and Enugu have earmarked only N2.32 billion for agric. There are no figures for Abia, Ebonyi and Imo states. The zone has a combined budget of N490 billion.
State-by-state figures
From the available data analysed by Daily Trust, only three states voted a two-digit figure for agric, despite its strategic importance. They are Sokoto (N14.96 billion), Kebbi (N12.5 billion) and Ogun (N10.2 billion).
States with above N5 billion budgets for agric are Bauchi (N9.5 billion), Borno (N8.6 billion), Akwa Ibom (N7.98 billion), Kano (N7.5 billion), Jigawa (N7.4 billion), Katsina (N6.42 billion), Zamfara (N5.82 billion), Yobe (N5.72 billion) and Kaduna (N5.58 billion).
States with the least approved budgets for agric include Edo (N100 million), Kwara (N244 million), Anambra (N1.02 billion), Kogi (N1.18 billion), Enugu (N1.3 billion), Bayelsa (N1.36 billion), Rivers (N1.5 billion), Adamawa (N1.6 billion), Ebonyi (N2.4 billion), Niger (N2.53 billion), Plateau (N3.32 billion) and Taraba (N4.2 billion).
Budget too low
Mr Ukaoha said for agriculture to play the role of growth driver by contributing 36 percent of the GDP in 2015 (ATA lifespan) and by extension 2016, the input required by producers of 80 percent of the food consumed by Nigerians and Nigerian industries must not be left to sheer market forces.
He decried the absence of synergy between the annual budget allocations and small scale farming in the country. "About 66 percent of the population is engaged in different types of farming activities with a further 90 percent engaged at small-scale levels. About 80 percent of food produced locally in the country is also produced through farming at the smallholder farms. Despite these, small-scale farmers in rural communities hardly feel the impact of the annual budgets," he said.
He said since small-scale farmers were mostly illiterate, they were neither able to comprehend budget technicalities nor demand any interventions. They are thus left at the mercy of market forces and competition over farming input with the fewer, richer, more educated and powerful 'political farmers' taking greater advantage of any agricultural improvement interventionist policies.
He said the agric budget must be implemented quickly to have any impact on the sector. He said farm implements must be given to farmers now as the farming season peaks.
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