Treat farmers, herders crises as matter of public interest – Conference tells government

The Conference has therefore called on policy makers, opinion leaders and even experts to treat the conflicts as a matter of public interest just as it disagreed with the notion that farming and cattle rearing are personal enterprises.

Reading the Communiqué at the end of the Conference, which was held at the Federal University Kashere, Gombe State, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alhassan Mohammed Gani stated that the conference held the view that the enormity of the conflicts makes it a matter of public interest due to the evidence of the colossal economic, social and political consequences it is having on the citizenry.

“The economies of a pastoral nomadism in Nigeria are so significant that it has provided larger amount of the country’s beef demand and dairy products. It is also an industry with a tremendous value chain embedded deeply in the Nigerian economy”, the conference posited.

It also observed that all grazing reserves have been substantially encroached upon or abandoned to waste due to years of neglect adding that conflicts between farmers and pastoralists is a familiar phenomenon across the globe but that it has been strategically managed in the interest of both parties and the society.

Other far reaching recommendations made by the conference included the need to design an appropriate, comprehensive and positive programme to integrate the pastoral nomad into the Nigerian society culturally and politically.

“In doing this, we have to reconstruct the extant Nomadic Education Scheme to broaden the mandates of the Agency responsible for this and strengthen its capacity to deliver through legislative provision,” the communiqué emphasized.

The conference also called on Government to review its ranch development policy and pastoral nomadism in such a way that the River Basin Development Authorities (RBDA’s) underutilized lands should be used for pilot schemes for ranching.

The Communiqué also recommended that, “There is the need to resuscitate the discarded traditional conflict resolution mechanism that used to involve the participation of the traditional institutions at various levels towards bringing consolidating harmony in communities between pastoralists and farmers.

“The National Assembly should revisit the proposed grazing reserve bill introduced and ensure that it is passed. This effort should, however, take into account the weakness of the bill, which include the challenges of taking away land and water resources from farmers and communities who are also citizens and giving same to pastoralists in ways that disenfranchise the legitimate interest of farmers leading to another conflict”, the communiqué recommended among many others.