Kaduna — Stakeholders in the Agricultural sector, comprising small farm holders and agricultural organisations across Nigeria rose from a three-day meeting where they reviewed the 2010 budget and rejected the allocation of N148, 715,672,952 to the agriculture sector as too paltry.

The farmers, under the aegies of "Voices for Food Security" said the amount is far short of the target of 10 per cent recommended by the Maputo Declaration of 2003, to which Nigeria is a signatory.

"We reject the allocation of N148, 715,672,952 to the agriculture sector. This is a paltry 3.7 per cent of the total budget of N4, 079,654,724,257, which is far short of the target of 10 per cent recommended by the Maputo Declaration of 2003, to which Nigeria is a signatory.

"A large portion of this allocation will go into recurrent expenditures, which means that little will go into serious project implementation from which the population derive direct benefits. Compared with the about 12 per cent of last year, the meagre allocation in this year's budget suggests that the Nigerian authorities no longer believe that food security is an issue.

"However, this flies against the stark reality that the food situation in Nigeria is worsening. And it portends a failure of the authorities in Nigeria to provide leadership for Africa's recovery from the current global economic crisis. We are also at pains to understand this retrogression in budgetary allocation considering the emergence agriculture-related challenges, such as avian influenza and swine flu," they said.

A statement issued in Kaduna by the farmers, noted that "The budget, in its present form, can neither further the cause of the government's Seven-Point Agenda, Vision 20-20-20, nor accelerate progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)."

"We are also concerned that the budget does not significantly address the concerns of smallholder farmers; neither does it adequately address the concerns of women farmers, who constitute about 60 of the labour force in the agriculture and food sector. We therefore call on the national assembly to direct the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and water Resources (FMAWR), within the framework of this budget, to make provisions for the strengthening of the Women in Agriculture programme of the Ministry.

"The budget is also deficient in its non-provision for youth, millions of who are jobless and are roaming our street in vulnerability to life-threatening conditions, including violent crime, HIV/AIDS and other challenges. We are alarmed at the over concentration of resources in the budget in the hands of federal agencies, to the detriment of local governments. This is unacceptable, because agriculture takes place at the grassroots. Local governments should be vested with greater levels of responsibility for agriculture, while FMAWR creates the enabling environment for food production," he said.

It release added that In order to free more resources to the agriculture sector, the National Assembly should do downward reviews of the allocations to defence (of N232, 044,871,801) and the Federal Capital Territory Administration (N124, 110,000,000), as well as to other allocations that do not address current national priorities. They then ask the National Assembly to reject the 2010 budget and review it again.