African governments should allocate at least 25 percent of their budgets to
agricultural and rural development,according to an FAO report released at
the 21st Regional Conference for Africa that opened on Monday in
Yaounde,Cameroon.

The report argues that increased public expenditure spending could reduce
the problems for Africa's small-scale farmers and trigger a greater flow of
private investment to the rural sector.

Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of total employment in sub-Saharan
Africa,FAO said,but received less than 10 percent of the national budget in
most countries between 1961 and 1997.

Even in countries where significant investments were made to develop public
agriculture capital goods, government often failed to maintain
 roads and
irrigation systems, according to FAO. In addition, public resources were
often allocated to a single cereal crop, such as rice, maize and wheat, and
not enough to traditional crops like roots, tubers, pulses or oil seeds.

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