At the three-day event, which was held from July 29 to 31, 2024, participants called on the federal and state executives, the National Assembly and the state Houses of Assembly to scale up public investment in agriculture and ensure timely consideration, passage, and timely budget releases and utilisation as a strategic approach to increase food production, reduce hunger and poverty, and achieve the Maputo/Malabo Commitments.
They suggested aligning the national agricultural transformation and innovation policy with the targets and indicators of the biennial review to ensure Nigeria meets the Malabo Commitments.
“As approved by the 44th National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development; the three tiers of government should commit 10 per cent of their annual budget to the agriculture sector to meet the 10 per cent Maputo/Malabo Declaration required to support at least six per cent growth rate for the sector as postulated in the CAADP framework.
“There should be political will to allocate at least 10 per cent of annual budgets to the agriculture sector with appropriate budget lines so that Nigeria will be on track in the next Biennial Reporting to the African Union Heads of States and Government in line with the Malabo Declaration and Commitments of 2014,” the communiqué read.
The stakeholders maintained that more work needs to be done to improve the agriculture budget in the coming days, including ensuring it is gender sensitive and responsive by providing line items for the implementation of the National Gender Policy in Agriculture that addresses specific challenges that affect women farmers differently from men.
