The Federal Government budgeted about N874.83bn for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development from 2016 to 2021, whereas the imports of agricultural goods into Nigeria during same period were estimated at N7.81tn.
It was gathered that the highest imports of agricultural goods into the country during the period under review were recorded in 2021, as products valued at N2.74tn were imported last year.
On the other hand, the least imports within the same duration were reported in 2016. Nigeria’s agricultural goods imports in 2016 were estimated at N656.4bn.
Operators in the agric business space frowned at the development, outlining a plethora of reasons for the massive imports when compared to what was budgeted and often not fully released to the agric ministry during the review period.
Data from the 2016 to 2021 budgets for the ministry indicated that the government budgeted about N874.83bn for the ministry to drive the country’s agricultural sector during the six-year period.
Whereas data analysed by our correspondent from 24 different quarterly reports obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics on ‘Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics’ with respect to the total imports of agricultural goods into Nigeria showed that N7.81tn was spent on food imports.
An analysis of the budgets for the agriculture ministry showed that in 2016, the ministry got a budget of N46.17bn for capital projects and N29.63bn for recurrent expenditures, making it a total of N75.8bn for that year.
Its budget for capital projects in 2017 was N103.79bn, while both the combined capital (N118.98bn) and recurrent (N53.81bn) budgets for the ministry in 2018 was N172.79bn.
In 2019, the FMARD’s capital and recurrent budgets were N107.21bn and N57.68bn respectively, translating into a total of N164.89bn.
Its 2020 capital budget was N124.4bn with a recurrent budget of N58.69bn, making it a total of N183.1bn.
The ministry’s 2021 capital budget was N110.24bn. It got N69.22bn for recurrent expenses, bringing its total budget for last year to N174.46bn.
Meanwhile data from the Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics of the NBS on total imports of agricultural goods imported into the country last year was N2.74tn.
