About 5.3 million Nigerians experienced acute food crisis in 16 states of northern Nigeria last year. The country was identified among eight countries with the worst food crises in 2018, together accounting for two-thirds of the total number of people facing acute food insecurity in the world – amounting to nearly 72 million people.
This was the finding of the 2019 Global Report on Food Crises. The report highlighted northern Nigeria as the driver of food insecurity in the country and Nigeria as among eight countries expected to face the most severe food crises in 2019.
Nigeria, with over 82 million hectares of arable land, a large youthful population, a tropical climate, and soil that supports a vast array of crops, found itself in the company of Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Sudan, and South Sudan.
At the peak of the lean season last year, 3 million people were reported to be acutely food-insecure in the three north-eastern states affected by the Boko Haram insurgency were protracted conflict and mass displacement disrupted agriculture, trade, markets and livelihoods, and pushed up food prices.
Things may improve, but they could also get worse. An additional 22.7 million Nigerians in the north alone are at risk of food crisis if things do not improve. The number will increase dramatically when the southern regions begin to feel the pinch of insecurity more than being currently experienced.
Across Nigeria, from kidnapping to bandit attacks, invasion of farmlands by suspected herdsmen and other violent clashes, the farmlands are increasingly becoming battlefields where mostly unarmed farmers are slaughtered. For mostly small-holder farmers who feel they have no choice other than to farm, they brave the odds, but may or may not make it home alive from the farm.
Despite repeated statements by the Federal Government that Boko Haram has been defeated, the insurgent group occasionally still springs attacks, and in most cases, the casualties are farmers.
Read More : 10 years of bloody campaign: Nigeria bleeds under Boko Haram insurgency
A visit to Borno and Yobe States last year revealed most farmers have relocated to IDP camps, and those who are in the villages live in fear and dare not venture to the farms. Today, the situation has not changed.
“The situation remains the same; nobody can go to the farms. You cannot go outside Maiduguri and off the road for about two to five kilometres (for fear of Boko Haram),” said Abdulkadir Jidda, chairman, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Born State Chapter, in a phone interview on Thursday.
The most recent attack on farmers, according to him, was over a week ago when about 17 farmers were killed in attacks in three different locations – Damboa road, Monguno road, and the Maiduguri-Damaturu road – all on the same day.
For others who are big farmers and have invested several millions (and even billions) of naira into farming, they simply abandon the farms as the risk of maiming during attacks, or even death, is not one they are willing to take.
“The snowball effect of insecurity will start being felt by the first quarter of next year in food prices,” said Rotimi Williams, CEO, Kereskuk Rice Farm, who told BusinessDay he had to suspend operations on his 45,000-hectare rice farm in Nasarawa. “It is devastating and government has to do something about it very quickly.”
Williams explained that as long as insecurity persists, “nobody is going to provide funding (for agriculture)”. When attacks occur, the staff have to run as fast and far away as they can, and more often than not, crops that have been cultivated are lost.
“If we are going to talk about agriculture in any sense, security is the first thing that must be tackled. These communal conflicts have to end. This farmers-herders issue honestly has to be brought to a stop,” he said.
Williams is not the only ‘big farmer’ who has abandoned his farm. Even though the actual number of farms that have shut down cannot be ascertained, several dozens of big multi-million naira farms have suspended operations. For the smallholder farmers, thousands of them have put their sources of livelihoods on hold, as they hope to preserve their lives by not falling prey to insecurity.
“If one had no reserve, by now one would have committed suicide,” said Olumide Abayomi, a chartered account and fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), who retired from his lucrative job at African Capital Alliance, a private equity firm, in 2013.
In an earlier publication by BusinessDay, Abayomi had lamented losses incurred after crops on his 450-acre farm in Osun State were eaten up by cattle, which, according to him, were brought by Fulani herdsmen.
“I invested heavily and wanted to really do agriculture,” he said, recalling he had spent an estimated N110 million on the farmland located in Osuntedo village, Osun State. Abandoned on the farm after the herders plundered it with their cattle is a bulldozer bought for about $126,000 (N45.4 million), one he said is one of the biggest in the country.
Nigeria has for years hoped to position agriculture as a means of ‘diversifying the economy’, but this aspiration hangs on a rather thin thread as insecurity makes it increasingly difficult for agricultural activities to thrive. The smallholder farmers in different parts of the country do not feel safe to visit their farms, while the big farmers with millions of naira to invest are equally scared to commit their funds into a venture that may sink their money and also take their life.
CALEB OJEWALE
