More than 1 million farmers in the Nigerian state of Benue state once called the “food basket of Nigeria, have been displaced because of the intercommunal violence between herders and farmers competing for water and land.
Violence over the last several years has reduced crop harvests in the northcentral state of Africa’s most populous nation.
“We are heading to a food crisis,” Benue State Gov. Samuel Ortom told The Associated Press.
Across northern Nigeria, at least 13 million are now facing hunger amid a lean season, according to the U.N. World Food Program. The violence has also disrupted the sales of food as roads are too unsafe for farmers to transport crops and marketplaces have been razed by attackers. Rice production has dropped so much that its price has jumped more than 60% in Benue state as well as some other parts of the country.
“There is a very real risk of famine because both conflict and COVID-19 has made it harder to reach those most in need,” a spokesperson of the U.N. agency explained.
Thousands of Nigerians have been killed in the decades-long clashes between agrarian communities and nomadic cattle herders who are fighting over limited access to water and grazing land. The farmers often accuse the herders of encroaching in their fields while the herders, mostly from the Fulani ethnic group, claim the croplands are their traditional grazing routes.
Hunger crisis looms in Nigeria's 'food basket' amid conflict | AP News
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