The risk of violence that rural households perceive affects their agricultural output and economic welfare. EfD Researcher and WinEED member Amaka Nnaji, and co-authors have studied the consequences of the conflicts between farmers and herders.
Nomadic herders move from north to south In Nigeria, across the Sahel to look for grazing land. Clashes between farmers and herders over water and land resources have caused deaths in recent years. The causes of conflicts are diverse, such as climate change and competition over resources. Often herder’s animals graze on farmland damaging the crops, reducing the yield, and causing conflict between farmers and herders. Climate change modifies herders' migratory patterns, increasing conflict over land (1).
Both parties commit violent acts. Most of the agricultural production occurs in the middle belt and northern parts of Nigeria. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), most Nigerian farmers work at the subsistence level (2).
Study will provide policy recommendations
Amaka Nnaji and her coauthors found a gap in the academic literature about the agricultural production effects of farmer-herder conflict, as this is a specific type of conflict. So far, the literature presented the impact of violent conflicts, such as the Colombian conflict with guerrilla groups on farmer production decisions, which shows that farmers produce less and invest less due to the conflict. Therefore, the researchers found it relevant to investigate the effects of clashes between nomadic herders and farmers on the agricultural production of rural households. The resulting policy recommendations will also be of interest to other African countries such as Central Mali and Burkina Faso, in which farmer–herder conflicts are also rising with deep impacts on agricultural output and population life conditions.
Amaka Nnaji and colleagues inquired about these effects and presented the results in the paper Risk perception, farmer – herder conflicts and production decisions: evidence from Nigeria.
Impact of farmer-herder conflict risk on agricultural output
In the paper, the authors analyzed the indirect effects of the farmer-herder conflict on household production decisions and livelihood in Nigeria. They look at the following variables: the decision to use fertilizers, investment in fertilizers, area for cropland, and the income ratio that works as a proxy for the allocation of labor time from the farmer to farming activities.
To calculate the effect of those variables, Amaka Nnaji and colleagues extend the classical farm household model to include risk perception. This model implies that household’s risk preferences and perception of conflict affect their agricultural output through their investment decisions. The data comes from a survey of 401 rural households in Nigeria’s northcentral and southeast zones in 2019. The data collected includes information on farm characteristics, the household, and the household head and covers the 2018 planting season.
To measure risk, authors use a subjective approximation of risk. This approach considers the probability of an event and subjective behavioral aspects are considered. These subjective aspects include the household’s comprehension of objective risks, level of exposition to risk, and the household’s ability to mitigate the effects of materialized risks. To calculate the risk perception index, the interviewed households ranked the risks from the greatest to the least from a list of possible concerns from farmer-herder conflicts that occurred in the previous agricultural season. For example: loss of crop and farm income, destruction of cropland and property, crop failure, scarcity of food/hunger, injured livestock, danger to human life and death, high market prices for food, among others. The researchers calculated rural household’s risk perception of this conflict and then measured how it affects their production decisions.
Results and recommendations of the research
An increase in risk perception of the farmer-herder conflict reduces the probability of using fertilizers and diminishes the investment in fertilizers per hectare of cropland. This reduction in fertilizer use translates into lower crop yield, reduction of farm income, and less food available for consumption. In the case of female-headed households, they are 23% less likely to use fertilizers per hectare of cropland than male-headed households. Amaka and her co-authors explain that women who are household heads have lower access to productive resources such as land and agricultural input.
They also find that the higher the perception of farmer-herder conflict risk, the more time the household dedicates to farm work. This is consistent with the literature that shows that exposition to conflict and terrorism reduces hired labor in Nigeria, resulting in more time devoted from households to farm work. This implies that conflict has adverse effects on the productivity and income of farm households. The study suggests that having a more sustainable food production system demands a more sustainable herding policy and an improvement in the perception of physical security.
The government has been implementing the Livestock Transformation Plan since 2019, which seeks to curb violence between herders and farmers and increase the sustainability and productivity of farming and livestock production. It is expected that over ten years, nomadic pastoralists will move their cattle into ranches and public reserves. There are challenges for implementation such as opposition from herders and farmers who oppose the Plan’s benefits to pastoralists (3).
Amaka Nnaji comments: “A lot needs to be done to suppress the misconceptions about the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). This could be through increased communication and training of herders and farmers on the all-around benefits of the NLTP. There needs to be a lot more dialogue among affected parties to ensure an understanding of the long-term benefits of the NLTP to the sustainability of the Nigerian livestock system. The government should also do more to resolve the religious and ethnic issues escalating these farmer-herder conflicts”.
References
(1) International Crisis Group. Video: “What Data Says About Herder-Farmer Violence in Nigeria”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8M7nOC9na8&t=100s
(2) Nigeria Agriculture at a Glance. FAO in Nigeria. https://www.fao.org/nigeria/fao-in-nigeria/nigeria-at-a-glance/en/
(3) International Crisis Group. “Ending Nigeria’s Herder-Farmer Crisis: The Livestock Reform Plan”. Report No 302. May 4th, 2021. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/nigeria/302-ending-nigerias-herder-farmer-crisis-livestock-reform-plan.
By: Manuela Fonseca (comm officer WinEED and EfD Colombia)