The Battle for Food Security: Nigerian Farmers in Distress

In the battle for food security, Nigerian farmers are facing significant challenges. As food prices continue to rise and the rainy season approaches, the future seems bleak due to increased farming inputs and insecurity.

Like a fish bone stuck in the throat, insecurity continues to shock the Nigeria State. Insurgency, kidnappings, banditry, herder and farmer clashes and many other security infractions. Many of these security quagmire occur in rural communities which has led to killings and displacement of farmers and further escalating Nigeria’s food security woes.

For instance, since the now unpopular petroleum subsidy removal and the central bank’s foreign exchange policy, Nigeria’s inflation has been on the rise and further worsening the livelihood of the poor as they struggle to put food on their tables.

Nigeria’s inflation rate climbed to 29.90 per cent in January 2024 from 28.92 per cent recorded in the previous month. The Nigeria Bureau of Statistics revealed this in its ‘Consumer Price Index. The 0.98 percent increase is an indication that the inflation rate in the country is yet to slow down.

At a February 26-27 meeting, its first in seven months. The development is likely to add more pressure on the Central Bank’s monetary policy committee to sharply raise interest rates. In a recently released report it reads, “In January 2024, the headline inflation rate increased to 29.90 per cent relative to the December 2023 headline inflation rate which was 28.92 per cent.

“Looking at the movement, the January 2024 headline inflation rate showed an increase of 0.98 percent points when compared to the December 2023 headline inflation rate. Similarly, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 8.08 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in January 2023, which was 21.82 per cent.”

“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in January 2024 when compared to the same month in the preceding year. Furthermore, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in January 2024 was 2.64 per cent which was 0.35 per cent higher than the rate recorded in December 2023 (2.29 per cent).

“This means that in January 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level is more than the rate of increase in the average price level in December 2023.”

Food inflation has been a reoccurring issue faced by several governments across the globe and inflamed by the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. In Nigeria, the price of food products has increased in geometric progression. And as the rainy season is edging closer, Nigerians hope to find solace in a new farming season that is deemed further by insecurity ravaged rural communities.

Recently, protests broke out in different parts of the country in reaction to the high cost of living with citizens in Niger, Kano, Kogi, Ondo, and other states demanding solutions to the economic crisis.

In lending its voices to the cause, the Northern traditional rulers and the Nigerian Bar Association criticized the hardship in the country precipitated by the fuel subsidy removal which had resulted in higher transport costs and food inflation. But government policies can’t take all the blame as the fragile security continues to affect farm productivity and food supply.

The struggle between herders and farmers in Nigeria over farmland and pasture is a serious and escalating conflict registering huge casualties and raising tensions particularly in the country’s Middle Belt. Drought and desertification in the north have forced pastoralist herdsmen to seek grazing lands further south resulting in competition over resources and clashes with settled farmers. Furthermore, they result in significant loss of lives and livelihoods, undermine food security, permit the proliferation of small arms, displace large numbers of people, and divert resources meant for development. Vulnerable groups such as women, children and youth, IDPs, and indigenous people are particularly impacted.

Although mostly an agrarian resource problem, an inaccurate definition of the conflict has turned it into one rooted in political, cultural, and ethno-religious beliefs and other distorted considerations. These narratives and profiles have aided aggressive encroachment and reprisal aggression between the parties leading to mutual hostility and reverse-violent attacks.

Data published by Nextier SPD Violent Conflict Database13 shows that in the twelve months to September 2021, farmer-herder conflicts occurred 71 times, accounting for 406 deaths, 49 injured, and 15 kidnapped persons. Except for one death, all the victims were civilians. The North-Central region remains the hotbed for farmer-herder conflicts (in terms of incidents), while the North-West is the most violent in terms of casualties per incident. The North-Central region recorded 58 percent of the incidents and accounted for 61 percent of the casualties.

At the same time, the South-West region recorded the second-highest number of incidents (25 percent of the total), only 12 percent of the deaths. The North-West region, on the other hand, recorded 4 percent of the incidents but 15 percent of the deaths. These proportions hold even when comparing all the victims (death, injured and kidnapped) to the total number of incidents. It is worthy of note that although the South-East recorded 6 percent of the incidents, it accounted for 9 percent of the deaths. The South-South had 6 percent of the incidents but only 3 percent of the casualties.

Furthermore, Nigeria’s decade-long war with Islamist insurgencies in the north has spawned a humanitarian crisis and killed about 30,000 people. The situation has worsened the food security drive of the government.

Groups of gunmen, known locally as bandits, have stepped up robberies and kidnapping for ransom. They have also killed thousands of people.

The bandits, who hide out in thick forests, from where they increasingly wreak havoc on one of the government’s key policies – weaning Nigeria from its dependence on oil exports by encouraging a return to farming, which currently accounts for 22% of the country’s gross national product (GDP). Rural Zamfara state – whose slogan is “farming is our pride” and where the vast majority of residents work in agriculture – is among the hardest hit by the attacks. The state is part of Nigeria’s bread basket, contributing significantly to national food production.

As the security crisis grows, small-scale farmers say they are being forced to flee their lands, seeing their profits hollowed out by extortion, and cannot bring their goods to market as bandits have made many roads impassable. The attack on smallholder farmers, along with widespread flooding and the war in Ukraine, continue to push up annual food price inflation to all time high.

“What we need is adequate security to enable us to farm and live peacefully,” said a displaced farmer, whose family now relies on food aid to survive.

“It’s only when we are safe that we can farm and take our produce to the market. Without that, our hands are literally tied.”

Bandit attacks are increasing but Nigeria’s security forces are thinly stretched fighting the Islamist insurgency in the northeast. The insurgents have stepped up their attacks and kidnapping women and children with local officials reporting that the bandits may be using them as human shields in the face of Nigerian army air raids. 

Security forces have continued to clamp down on the bandits, including air raids and a telecoms shutdown in parts of the northwest in an attempt to flush them from their hideouts. States like Zamfara, at the epicenter of the conflict, have also attempted to engage bandits in dialogue and offer amnesty. But the measures have so far failed to have a significant impact.

Until these security issues are resolved and farmers returned to their lands, Nigeria’s hope for food self-sufficiency remains unattainable and food inflation will continue for the foreseeable future.