By Felicia Imohimi, News Agency of Nigeria, Abuja
ActionAid says investment of N15 billion in key strategic areas of agriculture can generate over N100 billion additional funds to each state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
Mr Azubike Nwokoye, Food Systems Specialist, ActionAid Nigeria (AAN), said this in his presentation at the ongoing Technical Session of the 47 Regular meeting of the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security (NCAFS) on Tuesday in Kaduna.
The presentation is tagged “Political Economy Analysis on Agriculture Budget Investments Resultant Effects on States Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and Employment Generation for 2025”
The theme for 2025 NCAFS is “Food Sovereignty and Food Security, an Era of Renewed Hope”
Nwokoye said that increased funding to agriculture in strategic areas of post-harvest losses reduction, labour-saving technology, irrigation, women and youth in agriculture, extension services, among others, increases states’ IGR and reduces unemployment.
He emphasised that while increased and committed funding to agriculture will lead to increase in IGR, it would need to interact with other factors to bring about the desired reduction in unemployment.
“Budgetary allocations and total capital expenditure should go to strategic areas of investments which include extension services, access to credit, women and youth in agriculture, appropriate labour-saving technology among others.
“This support should be in the area of processing facilities, storage facilities, trainings, market access among others.
“Budget allocation should be channel to the areas of Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture (CRSA), irrigation, research and development, monitoring and evaluation as well as coordination,”he said.
Nwokoye said that AAN conducted political economy analysis of the resultant effect of investment in agriculture regarding states IGR across the 36 States and FCT.
According to him, the analysis help states, politicians and policy makers and governors to see that investment in agriculture is not expenditure but an investment in generating more revenue, unemployment and poverty reduction.
Nwokoye explained that in view of the baseline analysis on IGR for 2025 in each state, it showed that for some states like Gombe, their projected IGR for instance is 25.6 billion.
He, however, said that with this investment, they will generate an additional N112.98billion
“Osun has a projected IGR of N109.8 7 billion and it shows that they will be able to generate additional N114.08 billion if they invest 15 billion in key areas as well as other states.“he said.
Nwokoye challenged state governors to look at the agriculture sector as an investment and not just expenditure.
NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA