Farmers/Herdsmen Crisis and Sustainable Food Production in Nigeria

Abstract

The agrarian economy is the second major source of Nigeria's earning and employs about 70% of Nigerians. Media reports indicate that there have been increases in the cases of attacks by Fulani herdsmen on several farmers in communities. The Fulani herdsmen as were reported, brutally kill the inhabitants of the invaded farming communities, including women and children in various states across the country. The Fulani herdsmen are usually armed with sophisticated weapons when carrying out attacks on their target communities at the time they are defenseless like midnight or on Sundays when they are in their churches, killing people arbitrarily, especially women and children, burning houses and looting properties. States like Benue, Taraba, Nassarawa, Plateau, Kaduna, Katsina, has been in the news as being the worst hit of late, having tasted the overwhelming attacks by the Fulani herdsmen. Other states like Kogi, Delta, Imo, Ebonyi and Enugu have also had some isolated cases of the sporadic attacks by the unrestrained Fulani Herdsmen whose binge for blood has remained unquenching. The brutality and impunity with which the attackers operate without regard for the law and the sanctity of life, coupled with the inability of the Police and other military establishments to defend the victims who are being mercilessly slaughtered in their homeland, is most disturbing. The conflict between the Fulani herdsmen and the farmers usually arise when the Herdsmen overrun community farmland with their cattle and let them graze unrestricted on cultivated and uncultivated land, thereby destroying valuable food and cash crops without recourse to its implication on the farmer. Farming communities have been made to forego their farmlands, abandon their agricultural products of the farms which are the mainstay of the host communities, for the safety of their lives whenever the marauders strike. This is because when the communities try to resist them and request their exit, the Fulani herdsmen will become violent and attack the community sometimes with the aid of some alleged mercenaries from the neighbouring countries like Chad, Niger, Mali, and Cameroon. The most unfortunate aspect of the entire saga is the alleged complicity of the security agencies in Nigeria in protecting the killer herdsmen against the defenseless communities who have been attacked. Conflicts between pastoralists and farmers have been age-long in Nigeria; this is caused by increases in the herd sizes, due to improved conditions of the cattle, compelled the pastoralists to seek for more pastures beyond their geographical limited, unavoidable drought in the northern area and more pressures on the land resources (Bello, 2013). In Nigeria, agriculture employs about 70 percent of its labour force. Smallholders in the country's centre and southern harvest most of the country's tuber and vegetable crops while pastoralists in the north raise most of its grains and livestock. Over 90 percent of pastoralists reportedly are the Fulani, a large ethnic group straddling several W...

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