Oswald Agwu
All levels of government in Nigeria have been called upon to immediately declare a state of emergency on the agricultural sector to save the country from excruciating hunger which is gradually eroding its food sovereignty.
The call was made in a joint media briefing by the Ebonyi State Agriculture Budget Committee Group, a civil society initiative, and the Smallholder Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria, Ebonyi state Chapter.
The event was held Monday in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital.
It was anchored by a civil society organisation, Participatory Development Alternatives under its Scaling Up Public Investment in Agriculture (SUPIA) project supported by Actionaid Nigeria.
The briefing was aimed at intimating journalists with the findings from their review and analysis of the Ebonyi state’s 2025 Agric budget; their observations and recommendations.
Taking turns to address journalists from their communique, the chairman of the Budget Committee Group, Mathias Okinya and the state chairperson, SWOFON, Andrena Okwor, decried the drastic reduction in capital budgetary allocation to agriculture in the state from over 4 percent in 2024 to 1.5 percent in the 2025 budget.
They observed that such a development portends danger for the sector and signals the declining commitment of the state government to agriculture and food production in the face of imminent national hunger, adding that it grossly contradicts the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security adopted by African Heads of State at the African Union’s Second Ordinary Assembly in July 2003 which includes a key commitment for countries to allocate at least 10% of their national and state budgets to agriculture.
Okinya stated: “The 2025 Agriculture budget for Ebonyi State is 1.5% of the total state budget, which is still a far cry from the 10% benchmark of the Maputo Declaration.
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“This is the third lowest percentage allocation to agricultural sector in Ebonyi state since 2015 and goes to show the non-commitment of the state to the development of the agriculture sector.
“Despite the critical role agriculture plays in the lives and livelihoods of millions of Nigerians, successive governments have fallen short of the 10% budgetary target, leaving the sector underfunded and its potential unrealized.
The group from its communique further decried the poor performance of the 2024 Agricultural budget stating: “the 2024 Agriculture sector budget performance is abysmally poor with only 34.4% amounting to N 2,573,970,139.07, out of N 7,484,510,000. 00 of the capital allocation accessed, leaving 65.6% unassessed.
This development, according to the group undermines the fact that agriculture is one of the major sources of income generation in the State.
They however commended the State government for allocating specific budget line of fifty million naira (N 50,000,000.00) only for Agricultural empowerment for women farmers, describing it as a positive shift from the 2024 budget that did not capture specific allocation for women farmers.
Though they observed that the government did not specify the kind of empowerment that would be given to the women farmers, they expressed optimism that such a provision would largely enhance food productivity in the state, if well implemented.
They also commended, among others, the increased allocation for access to finance from One hundred million naira in 2024 to Two hundred million naira in 2025 which was also captured specifically as “Empowerment of Ebonyi farmers by providing access to grants.”
Attributing this and some other improvements in specific budget line allocations to government’s response to SWOFON’s advocacy, the group expressed hope that the grant would be released to farmers, especially Smallholder women farmers to ensure that greater percentage of them in the rural areas have access to agricultural grants.
Apart from demanding general scale up of investment in agriculture through improved budgetary allocation, the group recommended among other things, timely release of farm inputs and funding to farmers, procurement of labour saving and processing equipments for Smallholder farmers and effective monitoring and evaluation from relevant agencies as part of measures to enhance food production in Nigeria.
Stressing the importance of research in sustainable food production, the group further urged the government to increase partnership with universities and Colleges of Agriculture in the State for research purposes and new technologies to enhance agricultural development.
“There is need to bring more smallholder women farmers to the front of the budget planning discussion at state levels.
“Women need to be brought side by side their male counterpart in the discussion and planning of agricultural budget and its implementation”, the group further emphasized.
The Programme Officer, Participatory Development Alternatives, Ugochi Joseph, who spoke on behalf of the Organisation’s Executive Chair, Mark Abani, explained that the state Budget Committee Group, a group of NGOs with Agriculture as thematic areas, carries out analysis of yearly agricultural budget of the state under the coordination of PDA, with the aim of offering suggestions for improvement.
She noted that declaring a state of emergency on Agriculture in the state was quite necessary to redeem its image as predominantly an agrarian state, improve its economy, save the citizens from hunger and ensure sustainable food security.
Others who spoke to journalists at the event including a former national officer of SWOFON, Nnenna Ibiam and the SWOFON’s immediate past state coordinator, Mrs Nnenna Nkama, described the state’s 2025 budgetary allocation to Agriculture as quite unbelievable, requesting the state to act urgently to redeem the anomaly.
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