Senate demands 10% budget allocation to agriculture

The Senate on Monday urged the Federal Government to allocate at least 10 percent of the country’s annual budget to agriculture.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture Production, Services and Rural Development, Senator Salihu Mustapha, made the call at the joint budget defence session of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in Abuja.

He said the Senate and House of Representatives committees on agriculture production, services and rural development were concerned about the challenges facing the sector.

He, however, said that despite the challenges, the sector remained the largest contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from non-oil sector with over 20 per cent.

The lawmaker lamented that the budget allocation to the sector remained a far cry from the 10 percent of the nation’s budget in accordance with the Maputo declaration to which Nigeria was a signatory.

Mustapha said: “The agricultural sector has the largest potential to lead millions of Nigerians out of poverty and provide the much-needed food security.

“It is, therefore, imperative that the sector should be given the utmost priority in national economic policies and future budgets.

“I, therefore, call on the executive to exercise the political will to allocate at least 10 percent of the national budgets and revenues to the agricultural sector.”

He said the budget defence process was not only important but also sacrosanct.

The chairman stressed that both chambers of the National Assembly had demonstrated readiness to work together on the 2024 budget

Mustapha commended President Bola Tinubu for showing a desire to revert to the January to December budget cycle.

On his part, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, listed the ministry’s achievement in 2023 to include the procurement and distribution of 324,718 kilograms of certified maize seeds to farmers in the six geopolitical zones of the country.

He said the ministry distributed 2,300 tomato production, pests, and diseases management packs to 2,300 poor farmers in 10 states affected by Tuta Absoluta in 2022.

He listed the states as Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Borno, Gombe, Bauchi, Plateau, Nasarawa and Benue.

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