WSF 2011: Farmer demands better agriculture financing in Africa

12/02/2011

Small scale farmers should push for the governments in Africa to allocate more money into the agriculture sector. They said that it has been long time after the Maputo Declaration in 2003 where States pledged to allocate more budgetary money to agriculture.

Speaking before the demonstration at the world social forum (WSF) in Dakar recently, the ESAFF chairperson  of the Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers (ESAFF), Elizabeth Mpofu said that its now eight years since the Maputo Declaration in which African leaders committed themselves to allocate 10% by 2008. “It is unfortunately that that promise has not been fulfilled by many states today” she said adding that we are demanding not begging.

Small scale farmer staged a demonstration at the world social forum held in Dakar. The demo was to amplify the call to African Governments to allocate 10% plus to the agriculture sector and ensure that small scale farmers rip benefits from the allocation.

ESAFF which works in 12 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region, have been campaigning for the increased agriculture budgetary allocation in the ESA region. The campaign has been staged in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Madagascar. Other countries are Lesotho, Burundi and Seychelles. The objective of the campaign is to create awareness among farmers on the budget processes as well as influence policy makers, parliamentarians and the media on the Maputo Declaration on Food Security and Agriculture.

In January 2011, ESAFF farmer leaders visited the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa  (COMESA) through its agency the Alliance for  Commodity Trade in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) through its Directorate of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR). While in both institutions, farmer leaders repeated their call for a full implementation of the Maputo Declaration. They also called for countries to abide to the Maputo Declaration.