Journal of Agricultural Science and Food Research
Open Access

Assessment of Agricultural Production and Vulnerability to Conflict among Rural Households in North Central Nigeria

^*Correspondence: Oluwadamilola Kemi, Department of Science and Technology, National Defense College, Abuja, Nigeria, Email:

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Introduction

Nigeria’s major problems of food and agricultural production include poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, use of manual farm tools, lack of food storage facilities, lack of scientific and technological knowhow, lack of good leadership and non-colonialism, industrialization and privatisation, global warming and insecurity due to conflict. Conflict situation including ethnic, religious, herder-farmer, communal, and indigene/settler which threatens farmers’ sustainable livelihood have become brazen characteristics of Nigeria.

The concept of vulnerability refers to the long existing factors which affect the ability of a community or a household to respond to the events taking place during a conflict. They may be understood in terms of physical deprivation and material poverty. How people in the society view themselves and their ability to influence their environment also affects their degree of vulnerability. Some societies may be more susceptible in conflicts. For instance, the way a society is organized can affect its ability to cope with such situations [1].

Armed conflict usually gives rise to a change or an increase in needs. In this case, “needs” refers to the immediate requirements for survival or recovery from the calamities. The distinction between vulnerability and needs is relevant for several reasons: vulnerabilities generally precede disasters, contribute to their severity, impede effective disaster response and may continue afterwards. Needs, on the other hand, often arise out of the crisis itself, and are relatively short-term. Most disaster relief efforts tend to concentrate on meeting immediate needs, rather than on addressing and lessening vulnerabilities.

Statement of the problems

Conflicts cause serious dislocations, suspend or destroy income opportunities, create food insecurity, damage the environment, and frequently result in the loss of lives and property. Poor households who dominate small scale agricultural production bear the heaviest burdens of land-related conflicts for the simple reason that their daily needs and livelihoods are directly tied to their property rights. Conflicts have not only heightened the level of insecurity, but have also demonstrated high potential to exacerbate the food crisis in Nigeria and other affected countries due to loss of farmer lives, animals, crops and valuable properties.

There is however little location-specific information on the vulnerability of rural households to conflicts in most states of Nigeria including Nasarawa State.

Justification for the study

In view of the fact that conflicts have led to grave consequences like deaths, starvation, poverty, social unrest and unquantifiable losses among rural farmers. There is therefore, a pressing need for agriculturist to study and understand the effect of conflict on rural livelihood. The intensity of the conflict in Nasarawa State, where the study location is, calls for a need to measure the effect of frequent conflict occurrences that displace local farmers from their farms as well as claim lives and crops. The relevance of the study transcends mere theoretical disciplinary scope. It touches human life and various activities (within agricultural scope) especially in the interiors where farming activities are consistent. It can be useful to farmers to help them discover coping strategies to use during conflict, the government can use for a rehabilitation strategies and priority setting, the most severe of support to the people, it helps us to know the adequacy of measures to be put in place and also provide information to stakeholders on post conflict issues and take measures [2].

Materials and Methods

Data used for this study were collected over a period of two months. This ranges between January 2017 and December 2017. This enabled the researcher obtain information on the vulnerability of rural households to conflict. The main data for this study were generated through primary sources. This was obtained through the use of a structured questionnaire (Appendix 1) administered by trained enumerators. Data relating to the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the rural households, effect of conflict on agricultural production, income, and food expenditure consumption was obtained.

Analytical techniques

Descriptive statistics such as measures of central tendencies, which comprise mean, mode, standard deviation, frequency distribution and percentages, was used to describe the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the rural households in the study area. Other tools of analysis employed to be used in this study will include:

Vulnerability Index, Descriptive statistics, Correlation analysis, Likert type scale, and and stepwise regression analysis (Table 1).

Table 1: Vulnerability indicator.

Y=f(BXi, e)

Where Y=level of Vulnerability (%)

B is the coefficient

Xi is the vector of socioeconomic characteristics

Where:

• X1=Total household income

• X2=household size (number)

• X3=age of household head (years)

• X4=Education level of household head

• d1=Place of Agric as source of income

• d2=Sex of the household head

Following Madu and Gutu level of vulnerability to conflict was determined by rating the vulnerability indictors of the rural households which include sources of income, access to credit, period of food satisfaction, housing facility, and highest education, source of fuel, water and toilet. This was carried out as follows:

Source of income: Access to other non-agricultural income sources=1, 2 otherwise;

Access to Credit=1, 2 otherwise; Source of water: Use of pump and borehole=1, 2 otherwise, Source of fuel: Use of charcoal and stove=1, 2 otherwise: Source of toilet: Use of flush toilet=1, 2 otherwise; Highest education qualification of household head: Tertiary=1, 2, 3 otherwise and Period of food in satisfaction less than 6 months 1, 2 otherwise [3].

Results and Discussion

As shown in Table 2, the most severe of the types of conflict experienced by the rural household in the study area is the Farmer/herdsmen conflict which 91.06% of the respondents experienced it in an highly severe manner followed by the ethno religious which was highly severe in 7.09% of the respondents and the communal conflict is mostly not severe. The finding of this study is supported by Adisa and Adekunle which showed that farmers’ most widely experienced material losses as a result of farmer-herdsmen conflicts were losses of crop yield and farm income (Table 2).

Table 2: Distribution of rural households according to severity of different types of Conflict.

Vulnerability of rural households to conflict

Issues affecting rural household to conflict such as period of food insatisfaction, source of fuel, source of water, type of toilet, farm size and housing condition are discussed in this section. Distribution of the respondents according to issues affecting the vulnerability of the rural households to conflict is as presented (Table 3).

Table 3: Distribution of rural household according to issues affecting vulnerability.

Household whose farm size is less than 2 hectares are likely to be more vulnerable to conflict than those with larger farm size. Also, those with less than 6 months of food in satisfaction are considered to be less vulnerable to conflict than those with higher number of months of food in satisfaction [4,5].

Furthermore, households with firewood as their source of fuel may be more vulnerable than those with charcoal and stove because they have to go into the farm to get firewood and may encounter clashes which make them more vulnerable to conflict, so also those who have to go to the stream or rivers may encounter clashes on their way which make them more vulnerable than those whose source of water are pump, well and borehole [6,7].

Further analysis of issues affecting vulnerability based on the rating of the socioeconomic characteristics of rural households which include sources of income, access to credit, period of food satisfaction, housing facility, and highest education, sources of fuel and water as well as toilet facilities available to the rural households reveals the level of vulnerability of rural households to conflict [8] (Table 4).

Table 4: Level of Vulnerability of Rural Households to Conflict (%).

Conclusion

Conflict has adverse effect on the rural household in the country. Conflict is a major challenge in agricultural production in Northern Nigeria. In view of the agricultural dependent economy of the rural household in the region, conflict has negative implication on agriculture. All the respondents have not only experienced conflict but have been undergone diverse personal sufferings due to conflict. They have come up with some coping strategies; most of the strategies used by the farmers can only be effective for a short period of time, some of which cannot effectively reduce the effect of the conflict. Descriptive evidences indicate that all the rural households experienced conflict at one point over a specified period of four years ranging between 2011 and 2015. Farming as major source of income for majority of the rural household increases the level of vulnerability to conflict in the study area due to the reduction in agricultural production as a result of farmers/herdsmen conflict.

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