Agriculture ministers of eight of the 14 member nations of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have called on their governments to increase allocations to agriculture.
The eight want the allocations upped to at least 10% of national Budgets and have also asked that their governments explore ways of financing farming development at grass-root levels.
Meeting at the weekend in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, to prepare for the SADC Extraordinary Summit on Agriculture, they expressed concern over the lack of investment in the region’s agriculture.
The summit is scheduled for April 10 in Dar-es-Salaam or Arusha, Tanzania.
”Financial flows from public and private sources have declined. A considerable level of investment in the sector is required in order to achieve the objectives of food security and economic growth,” they said in a statement released by the SADC secretariat in Gaborone on Tuesday.
”The Maputo African Union Declaration of July 2003 called for an increase in members states’ budgetary allocations to agriculture to at least 10%. We need to meet this.”
Ministers from Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Tanzania attended the meeting.
Botswana, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe were absent. — Sapa