Benue State Farmers-Herders Conflicts Wicked Problem – 1 : Agriculture Livelihoods for Food Sovereignty, North-Central, Nigeria (Published)
Farmers-herders’ conflicts impact on agriculture livelihoods (availability, access, utilization and stability): vulnerability, poverty, and well-being in Benue state, Nigeria. In 2022 qualitative and exploratory research was deployed in the 744 questionnaires survey at Guma and Gwer-West local government areas, Benue state, Nigeria. Data analyzed using the mean, frequency, percentage and Likert 5 scale to transcribe the social theory and construct validity. The results of the study area survey show: 79.5% conflicts frequency, 53.4% farming occupation, 88.6% conflict’s awareness and 34% government policy measures implemented on conflicts, in Benue state, Nigeria. Likert 5 scale consensus scores: illegal excavation: agreed (969); illegal mining: agreed (963); gas flaring: agreed (870) and deforestation: strongly agreed (1017). Significance drivers of the resource conflicts are: high conflicts of interest (374), high cattle rustling (379), obstruction of the gracing route (332), pastoralism crises and climate change. Agriculture livelihoods framework developed for co-value creation methodology for specific problems context for actors and stakeholders for sustainability. Human development, regenerative agriculture, and converged technologies can mitigate stress and shock adaptation strategies for the farmers-herders’ conflicts. Infrastructure ex-ante drives total factor productivity for agricultural growth (technology, organization, institutions, and resource allocation). It has an integral factor on agriculture livelihoods driven by an interconnected set of physical, economic, institutional, and social factors. Multi-stakeholder collaboration and partnerships will provide bespoke solutions: mitigate agricultural risks, desertification, transhumance conflicts, resource management, market linkages, defence security posture and agriculture supply-chains for food sovereignty to eradicate multidimensional poverty for the emergence of Nigeria and Africa agriculture corridor development.
Keywords: Agriculture corridor, Agriculture livelihoods framework, Climate Change, Farmers-herders ‘conflicts, Food Sovereignty, Human Capital Development, Livestock, Sustainability, spatial polysingularity
Food Sovereignty in the Era of Land Grabbing: An African Perspective (Review Completed - Accepted)
Food is a basic human right. One of the humanity’s significant achievements has been to produce adequate food for the largest growing population. However, the co-existence of chronic hunger and malnutrition with presence of adequate capacities and appropriate mechanisms to address it is one of the gravest paradoxes of our time. In one-third of African countries the average daily calorie intake remains below the recommended level of 2100 kcal. The need and importance for greater food sovereignty has emerged out of broader concerns over the negative impact of globalized world’s food system on food security and environmental sustainability. Adoption of the food sovereignty principles are essential to address hunger since they empower local communities to have greater control over their productive resources, use and sustain ecologically friendly means of production, and access local markets as well as nutritious and culturally accepted food. The majority of African farmers (many of them are women) are smallholders, with two-thirds of all farms below 2 hectares and 90 % of farms below 10 hectares. However, the existing trend of land grabbing especially in Africa seriously affects food sovereignty in an unprecedented level. The introduction of intensive agricultural production, due to land grabbing often based on a transformation of complex and diversified smallholder farming systems for export and commercial purpose can seriously threaten biodiversity and land and water resources. This paper explores different dimensions of the complex relationship between food sovereignty and land grabbing within the perspective of African countries
Keywords: Desertification, Food Security, Food Security Governance, Food Sovereignty, Land Grabbing