Herders Farmers Crisis and Food Security in Nigeria- A Case of Benue State.

Abstract

Food security is an area of research that is gaining the attention of scholars, because of its importance to human survival. However, there is limited scholarly interventions on how the unabated activities of herder’s farmer’s crisis as affected food security in Nigeria, and Benue state in particular.  The focus of this study is to identify and interrogate the triggers of herder’s farmer’s crisis in Benue state, and how it has impacted on the quality and quantity of food in the state. The sample comprised 1600 farmers who were selected through a multi-stage cluster technique. The analysis for the study was done using simple percentage and mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) were used to describe demographic and other salient information in the data. The multiple Standard Regression was performed to determine the impact of herder’s farmer’s crisis on food security in Benue state. Results revealed among others that the location of the state within the tropical rain forest which has provided it with arable lands was a motivational factor for herdsmen incursion to provide food for their herds. Findings also showed that the incursion of the herders into Benue state came with negative implications such as limited agricultural output that as resulted in food scarcity and shortage. We also found out that the brazen attacks on local indigenes on their farmlands had severely discouraged them from going to their farms, while some had found alternative in other unproductive vices. Such a findings are wakeup call for political leaders to come up with holistic and honest strategies such as confinement of the herds in one location, instead of open method that is in practice.  Kinetic approach could also be applied to curb the expansionist tendency of the herders for the sake of peace, and to make the state and the country food secured and sufficient.