Terrorism and land use in agriculture: The case of Boko Haram in Nigeria

How Conflicts Affect Land Expansion by Smallholder Farmers: Evidence from Nigeria

“…This suggests that a conflict that can destroy a farm or displace a farmer may actually yield the result of expanded scale. Adelaja and George (2019b) found similar results for direct attacks by Boko Haram. They attribute this to the notion that farmers forced to migrate away by conflict end up leaving behind idled parcels, thereby creating opportunities for remaining or new farmers to scale up.…”

“…practices (Bozzoli and Brück 2009) and reduce agricultural productivity and the outputs of specific crops (Adelaja and George 2019a). This is partly because conflicts constrain access to labour (Kondylis 2010) and optimal land use and allocation choices (Adelaja and George 2019b), while adversely affecting the optimal investment choices of farmers (Arias, Ibáñez and Zambrano 2018). Anecdotal evidence also suggests that product and input markets are adversely affected, as conflicts reduce access to farm inputs and reduce market opportunities and raise product prices (Awodola and Oboshi 2015).…”

The impact of terrorism on agriculture in African countries

“…This can be understood from the work of Adelaja and George (2019a) who study the effects of conflict on agriculture using the Boko Haram insurgency as a case study. They distinguish the direct effects of terrorism (effects on production, inputs, infrastructure and human capital) from its indirect effects (loss of talent and other environmental factors).…”

“…Agriculture obviously plays a major role in economic growth and the survival of populations in Africa (Adelaja & George, 2019a). This observation is widely shared by economists and for good reason: more than half of the continent's gross domestic product (GDP) is correlated to the agricultural sector, according to what was established at the Emerging Markets Forum held in 2017 in Abidjan.…”

“…Second, one way for a terrorist organisation to gain public support is to create an artificial scarcity of resources in the target areas, to present this as a failure of the existing government and to position itself as a parallel government capable of solving the problem (Adelaja & George, 2019b). In most cases, in conflict‐affected areas, the major provider of resources is the agricultural sector and, as a result, it is particularly vulnerable to insurgent activities (Adelaja & George, 2019a). Third, conflict leads to deaths and significant displacement of people, resulting in labour shortages.…”