Oxfam wants FG to increase budgetary allocation to agriculture

Oxfam International, an international NGO, has called on the Federal Government to increase its budgetary allocation to agriculture.

A statement issued on Monday in Abuja by Tomi Ademokun, the campaigns manager of Oxfam Nigeria, stated that the country had fallen short of the July 2003 Maputo Declaration.

It would be recalled that the July 2003 Maputo Declaration in Mozambique states that 10 percent of national budget should go to agriculture.

Nineteen African Heads of State and Government at the African Union (AU) Summit endorsed the declaration.

The statement said that the cardinal components of the declaration was that Africa should allocate and implement increased spending on agriculture by 10 percent of their annual budgets by 2008.

It said that as progress was being made in terms of increasing budgetary allocations to agriculture in some African countries, Nigeria had fallen short of the 10 percent.