By CHARLES IWUOHA

An independent Budget Committee in Ebonyi State Thursday called on the State government to commit at least, 10% of its annual budget to the agriculture sector to meet the commitment of the Maputo/Malabo Declaration.

The group said such is expected to support, at least, a 6% growth rate for the sector as postulated under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.

They spoke in Abakaliki during a Public Financing for Agriculture (PFA) Budget Committee Advocacy Forum meeting, a program organized by an ActionAid Nigeria-funded organization, Participatory Development Alternatives (PDA).

The budget committee charged the State executive and legislative arms of government to scale-up Investment in agriculture as a strategic method to increase food production, and reduce hunger and poverty in the State.

A representative of ActionAid-Nigeria, Azubuike Nwokoye, appealed to the Committee to be open to knowledge, interface with one another, and committed to the cause of driving the government’s budget towards the welfare of citizens, especially Public Financing for Agriculture.

On her part, the Executive Director of PDA, Chidimma Arukwa, in her remarks noted that the meeting was targeting government budget increase to agriculture in order to benefit small-scale women farmers and urged the committee to lend its support to achieve the goal.

She appealed to the government to give more financial attention to women farmers as they were known to be responsible for about 70 per cent of agricultural produce in the country.

The state coordinator of the committee, Mathias Okinya, in his submission, urged the State Assembly to ensure timely passage of the budget, and, as well, monitor prompt release and implementation of total budgeted funds for the agricultural sector.

Okinya, who is the Executive Director of a partner of Community Health and Development Initiative, explained that the meeting was a follow-up from the national summit held recently in Abuja, under the sponsorship of ActionAid where far-reaching resolutions were made towards improved funding for agriculture.

In a communiqué issued, the group further advocated that the State Government should engage more farmers, especially the smallholder women farmers in budget planning, dialogue, and implementation to ensure gender balance and encourage the participatory budget process.

He added that the government should promote the enrolment of smallholder farmers into agricultural insurance policies while confronting other insecurity issues and natural disasters that threaten the farms and farmers.

The communiqué reads: “Public investment in agriculture should be scaled up in the specific areas of Extension Services, Access to Credit, Women in Agriculture, Youth in Agriculture, labour-Saving Technologies, Inputs, Post-Harvest Loss Reduction, processing facilities/storage facilities, training, market access, Research and Development, Monitoring and Evaluation, as well as Coordination.

“In the light of late budget releases, MDAs need to itemize their priorities and give a proper timeline that synchronizes with farmers and farm seasons. Without such a timed budget, capital budget releases may not be coming at the time when farmers need them.

“The State Government may need to legislate on warehousing funds for Agriculture Sector to mitigate the negative effect of the untimely release of funds. It should also channel financing according to comparative community advantages.

“The State Ministry of Agriculture and Civil Society Organizations should create more awareness/sensitization of stakeholders on the new agricultural policy as part of the effort towards promoting improved citizen participation in the budget process.

“The Committee also urged all relevant stakeholders to strengthen their monitoring of agricultural projects’ implementation as provided for in the budget in their various communities.”

The communiqué commended the support of the media towards the promotion of Agricultural policies and developments in the State in particular and called on them to increase their collaboration with the civil society groups in promoting increased investment and financing for agriculture.

A participant in the meeting, representing Advocates for Accountability & Inclusion in Africa, Agnes Okoh, commended ActionAid Nigeria for consistently improving budgetary response to agriculture in the State since 2015.

According to Okoh, the activities of the Committee with support from ActionAid raised the total budgetary allocation to agriculture in the State from 1.5% in 2015 to 2.4 per cent in 2016; while in 2017, 2018, and 2019; agriculture was allocated 3.7 per cent, 3.2 per cent, and 3.6 per cent respectively.

Update news