In July 2003, African heads of state met in Maputo under the auspices of the African Union and committed to allocating 10 per cent of their national budgets to the agriculture sector.

This commitment — the Maputo Declaration — was renewed 10 years later, in what became the Malabo Declaration, with the same target.

This investment is supposed to lead to 6 per cent annual growth in agriculture, spur a green revolution, reduce poverty and eliminate hunger and the continent’s need to import $40 billion’s worth of food.

But, 14 years on, Africa continues to import food, something Josefa Leonel Correa, the new AU Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, says is tantamount to exporting jobs.

Ms Correa says 60 per cent of the continent’s land is arable but it is not fully utilised.

Estherine Fotabono, the director of programmes at the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) says that more investment in agriculture would enable 70 per cent of the continent’s youth to meaningful jobs in the sector.

But these experts do not state where the 10 per cent investment is needed.

Climate change

According to a 2016 report by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), just five of the 54 AU states — Zimbabwe, Malawi, Madagascar, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso — are implementing the promise.

But even these have not gained much, except for Ethiopia. Even if it is among the African countries hit by this year’s famine, it is the only one whose agricultural productivity is high, thanks to the government’s ability and land offers meant to attract foreign plantation farmers.

In Malawi, which also took an early decision to invest 10 per cent of its national budget in agriculture, the country only saw a short-lived improvement in the production of maize, its staple crop.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, Malawi produced 2.4 million tonnes of maize in 2016. Production has averaged 3.3 million tonnes between 2012 and 2016.

Erica Maganga, Permanent Secretary in Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture, blames the reduction in maize productivity on climate change. Malawi spends about 20 per cent of the national budget on agriculture but an official from the US Agency for International Development says that most of this expenditure is misplaced.

A large percentage of the money goes to fertiliser subsidies, when these should be funded by farmers. Ms Maganga admits this is a problem and that the government is trying to fix it as farmers are increasingly expected to shoulder more of their input costs.

Blanket proposal

Ghana has previously allocated 10 per cent of its national budget to agriculture. But the government has since reversed this investment, as the country did not realise any increase in productivity.

Josephine Quagrainie the deputy director in the Ministry of Agriculture in Ghana, says her country has reverted to giving the sector less than five per cent, because no one knew how best to use the extra resources.

“Ghana provided the 10 per cent but it was not skewed towards investment, because we did not know how to use it,” she said.

Ms Quagrainie added that when the money for agriculture was made available, it went to recurrent expenditure including paying salaries to public officials.

Following the start of oil production in 2008, Ghana became extravagant, increasing wages of public officials and building a huge budget deficit, so that by 2014, the nation was seeking debt relief from the IMF.

When The EastAfrican sought to know what investments in agriculture would require 10 per cent of the national budget, Agnes Kalibata, the Agra president, could not answer, arguing that this would pre-empt what would be addressed at a press conference that was to take place later.

At the press conference hosted by Agra, Nepad and the AU, no one talked about how the 10 per cent for agriculture would be used. But Ms Correa wants officials in her office to figure out whether the 10 per cent national budget requirement should be a blanket proposal for every country. “We need to rethink the issue of 10 per cent and determine whether it is necessary,” she said.

Ms Correa said that in places like her country, Angola, 10 per cent of the national budget would be too much money for the agricultural sector.

A similar argument has been advanced by countries with small budgets like Uganda. Ugandan officials in the Finance Ministry say agriculture is mostly a business for the private sector and that the government should allocate it less than 10 per cent of the budget as the money would be better spent on roads and energy infrastructure.

As a result, allocation to Uganda’s agriculture sector averages about three per cent of the national budget.