Looming Hunger crisis in Nigeria, due to strife between Farmers, Herders

In some Nigerian states, violence between farmers and herders over access to water and land has placed food production at jeopardy, implying that a famine crisis is now coming in sections of Africa’s most populous country. 

According to an Amnesty International assessment, the fighting, which adds to a decade-long insurgency by Islamist extremists that has killed tens of thousands in northeast Nigeria, has resulted in 3,641 deaths between 2016 and 2018, the closest to an official total. 

Ibrahim Mohammed, a yam, soybean, and guinea corn farmer, is one of the farmers caught up in the crisis that has engulfed Benue state and sections of northern Nigeria.  

He said he had to start from scratch when his seedlings, land, and home were destroyed by fire in 2018. 

Life has gotten much more tough these days, he stated in early January from his farm in Agatu village, north-central Nigeria. 

While threshing another batch of rice collected from the field, his wife Hannah Mgbede requested a break from the back-breaking labor to nurse their 18-month-old kid and have her first meal of the day.