The Kwara Budget Committee Group has asked the state government to invest in the budget for silos and other preservation measures to prevent annual post-harvest losses estimated at N94.5 billion.
The organisation, a coalition of Non-Governmental Agricultural Organisations, made this request in a conference on Tuesday, 29th April in Ilorin, where they offered an analysis of the 2025 Kwara Agriculture budget.
The spokesperson for the group, Mrs. Modupe Suleiman, Deputy Coordinator of the Small-Scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON), stated, “This is imperative as Kwara experiences annual post-harvest losses of N94.5bn, contributing to the national estimated losses of N3.5 trillion annually.”
She said a report by ActionAid Nigeria shows that farmers in Kwara incur annual losses of N94.5 billion.
Despite this alarming figure, the 2025 agriculture budget does not allocate funds for post-harvest loss reduction support.
This concern is further heightened by the national call for food security following President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency on food security in July.
“Currently, smallholder women farmers in Kwara face limited access, with only 26% having access to processing facilities, 10 % to transportation, 21% to market access, and just 39 % receiving training on reducing post-harvest losses,” Suleiman added.
In 2024, the percentage was 1.49%, while in 2025, it dropped to 0.97%, a decrease of 0.52%.
“The 0.97% allocated in 2025 is well below the international benchmark. We, therefore, urge the government to increase the agriculture budget to meet the 10 per cent target set by the Maputo/Malabo Declaration and Commitment,” She said.
She noted that as of December 31, 2024, only N5,835,250,735 (representing just 37.3%) of the total N15,631,575,080 allocated for agriculture had been released and utilised.
“Given the low budget performance in 2024 and the poor release of funds for projects supporting smallholder farmers, there is a critical need for improved and timely budget releases.”
Additionally, the group suggested that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should oversee all agricultural budgetary actions to guarantee accountability and transparency.
Similarly, the analysis’s goal was to find loopholes and assess how result-oriented the agriculture budget was in ensuring food security and assisting farmers, according to Mr. Abdurrahman Ayuba, the Coordinator of Scaling Up Public Investment in Agriculture (SUPIA).
Source: Nairametrics
Image Credit: Kwara State Government
