Livelihood diversification amongst pastoralists and conflict with Arable crop farmers: empirical evidence from Kwara state, Nigeria
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Date
2017
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nigerian Journal of Rural Sociology
Abstract
The study identified causes of conflicts, settlement pattern of pastoral farmers and analyzed the influence of
livelihood diversification on conflicts between pastoralists and indigenous crop farmers. Using multistage
sampling procedure to select 280 respondents, data were collected by means of structured interview schedule
and analyzed by frequency distribution, Pearson Correlation and one-way ANOVA. Results show that high
pressure on land (WMS = 4.87) and unfavourable land tenure system (4.56) mainly caused the conflicts. Crop
and pastoral farmers had an average farm size of 2.9ha and 1.7ha, respectively. Majority (75.5%) of pastoralists
were engaged in crop production, while only 12.1% of crop farmers were involved in livestock rearing. Also,
57.9% and 32.9% amongst crop farmers and 14.2% and 15.0% amongst pastoral farmers were involved in
trading and commercial (vehicular) transport business, respectively. Furthermore, 16.4% and 7.9% of the
pastoralists lived in mud and block- walled houses with corrugated iron sheets, respectively. Transformational
approach was identified as most acceptable solution of conflict resolution by both crop and pastoral farmers.
There was a significant difference between farm size (F=9.33) and educational level (F=8.93) of crop and
pastoral farmers. There was also a significant relationship between cause of conflicts and pastoralists’ livelihood
diversification (r=0.74) and number of years’ of pastoralists in settlement (r=0.29). The study concluded that
increasing involvement of the pastoralists in crop production, involvement in other employment opportunities
and erection of permanent building structure ignited unhealthy rivalry between the two groups.