Impact of pastoralists-farmers’ conflicts on agroforestry farmers’ psychology and agricultural production in north central Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the escalating conflict between the farmers and the pastoralists in the North Central region of Nigeria with regard to its impact on the psychology and productivity of agroforestry farmers. Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau states were reported to be the most affected by farmer- pastoralist conflicts in North Central Nigeria, they were therefore purposively selected for the study. The local governments that are most affected by the conflicts were also selected in each state. 25% of agroforestry farmers in each of the selected local government were randomly selected for the study. A total of one hundred and eighty (180) well-structured questionnaires were administered to farmers. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage while the correlation coefficient (r) was used to draw inferences between the variables of the hypotheses. The study found out that 29% of the respondents were between the ages of 31-40, 75.6% were male, 69.8% were married, 37.2% had secondary education and majority of them (83.8%) were Christians. Also, 67.8% of them take farming as their main occupation. 40% of them has 6-10 acres of farm size. The Spearman’s rho correlation analysis revealed that demographics characteristics [age (r= -0.341; p= 0.000) education status (r= 0.200; p= 0.008) and household size (r= 0.151; p= 0.042)] of the respondents significantly correlated with the impact the conflict had on respondents’ psychology. The correlation coefficient (R)) showed that frequency of conflict is significantly related to respondents’ agricultural loss (r=0.183; p=0.025) and that the conflicts impact on respondents’ psychology is significantly correlated with their agricultural productiity (r=0.1357; p=0.034).