Herdsmen crisis: Nigeria on verge of food crisis

By Odunewu Segun

While the agricultural sector contributed about 29.15% to Nigeria’s nominal GDP in 2017, the ongoing farmers-herdsmen crisis gives cause to worry that there may indeed be a decline in this year’s performance compared to last year.

Due to its readily available expanse of arable land and a willing workforce, Nigeria’s Benue State is aptly regarded as the food basket of the nation. Many of the country’s staple foods and commercial crops such as tomatoes, rice, cotton, yam, cassava and maize are produced there

But the constant bloody dispute between local farmers and Fulani herdsmen in the state may be threatening this status. In January 2018, about one hundred people were killed in Benue by cattle herdsmen.

Now with the farming season steadily approaching and the farmers scared to return to their farms, concerns are raised as to how Nigeria’s food output in 2018 will fare.

Therefore bearing in mind this security challenge in the state has so far taken a more serious undertone, and also considering the fact that the threat of Boko Haram still persists in many North Eastern states where agriculture thrives, the likelihood of a decline in food production exists.

A decline in Nigeria’s agricultural output in 2018 could among other things result in millions of dollars’ worth of foreign exchange earnings being lost.

Nigeria announced plans to begin yam exportation to the United Kingdom. Yam is one of the many food crops produced in large quantities by Benue farmers, therefore, the state may be one of its major suppliers.

Unfortunately, the farmers-herdsmen crisis may cause a stall (or even halt the exportation) because yam produces for this year may be poor. Therefore, Nigeria loses money and a potential business opportunity.

Another way a likely decline in food production may affect the economy is the hike in food prices. This is where average Nigerian families stand the risk of being directly affected. This is because the prices of foodstuff in the market increase when the amount of food produced is low.

According to Fatai Razaq Adewale, an Agricultural Economist, the farmers-herdsmen crisis in Benue State has the potential to cause an overall [negative] effect on Nigeria’s food production this year.

However, he pointed out that said impact can be avoided should the government make concerted efforts towards ending the crisis and restoring peace in the affected places.

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But even in the absence of the government’s ability to end the crisis, Adewale believed that the problem can still be offset, especially since many other Northern Nigeria states account for a bulk of the cash and food crops produced annually in the country.