Paper short abstract:

Climate change is having a significant impact on natural grasslands, increasing nomadic migration and farmer-herder conflicts. The study indicates that conflicts between farmers and herders had reduced the pools from which prospective farmers can be drawn. The study recommends bans of open grazing.

Paper long abstract:

Climate change is wreaking havoc on the pastures and fragile ecosystems that nomadic herders rely on for survival, as well as increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. This has exacerbated nomadic migration to Southwest, Nigeria in search for grazing pasture for their herds of cattle’s. Conflicts between "herders" and "farmers" have erupted in recent years as pastoralists and farmers compete for increasingly scarce resources. These conflicts had posed a number of threats to farm labor participation, including the displacement of farming households from disaster-prone areas, a reduction in the pools from which prospective farmers could be drawn. This paper investigates the effect of farmer-herder conflicts on farm labour participation in Southwest Nigeria using primary data collected through a structured questionnaire and focus group discussion (FGD) from 360 farmers who were directly impacted by the conflicts. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Logit, models were used to analyze the data. The OLS model revealed that household size, destruction of farmland and crops by cattle, increased farmer-Herder conflicts, while availability of grievance redress mechanism and educational level significantly reduced farmer-Herder conflicts in the study area. The Logit model revealed that number of dispute/clashes, displacement of farm households and value of crops damage by cattle had a marginal effect of 0.66, 0.24 and 0.68, which increases the probability of farmers’ involvement in non-farm labour participation by 0.66, 0.24 and 0.68 percent respectively. The study recommends bans of open grazing and movement restriction of cattle by herders in public places.