**6. Conclusion**

This study set out to make a case in favor of boosting agricultural productivity in Africa especially in conflict-prone agrarian environments in order to ultimately guarantee the contribution of the agriculture sector to the region's overall development. The main aim of the study was to inform and educate the general public but more so those who have positions of power in relation to peace and stability among African farming communities so that they could carry out their work without

*Regional Development in Africa*

the nation till date.

*to who should control the center [39].*

resources found therein [24, 27, 28, 37, 41, 47, 48].

investing for increased production" [52].

*except British imperial convenience. At independence, therefore, the new Nigeria inherited three powerful regions whose interests tended to draw them away from central authority and, once the British had departed, there was intense rivalry as* 

In sum, this economically driven colonial balkanization and amalgamation of regions that ordinarily had nothing in common—except as they would later have oil in common to fall apart on in the Nigerian case, for example—would almost immediately be put to the test "… by inter and intra, regional and sectional disagreements…" [27]. It was this unhealthy political atmosphere that ruptured and culminated in the full-blown, total war of 1967–1970 in Nigeria with its multistranded fratricidal consequences, the rippling effects of which still linger across

Another crowded field of social scientists [24, 27, 41–45] argue that disputes over land and ecological resources, population explosion and the need for more land, boundary, territoriality, domination, oppression and exclusion, indigenesettler divide, chieftaincy and power relations and religious differences are specific causes of a particular character of conflicts classified as inter-intra-ethnic conflicts. Still more [46] use sing the 1992 Ugep-Idomi boundary conflict in Cross River State of Nigeria as a case in point to further the land resources-related causal account and arguing that boundary in relation to "… land, water, oil wells or other important natural resources…" is at the root of violent feuds between communities, and that these have continued to be on the increase in Nigeria. Other inquiries on the region's development experience further elongate the list of studies that fan the embers of the argument linking conflicts in Nigeria and Africa directly to land and natural

While not differing from the foregoing theoretical stance, other scholars [27, 49–51] talk rather specifically of "ecological resources" in their account of causes of conflicts in the region. As such, the case of natural resource conflicts in North-Central Nigeria has been used to exemplify this ideological interpretation contending that natural resource conflict is more dispersed than sociopolitical conflict. Natural resource conflicts usually occur, the study argues, in inaccessible hinterlands and often go unreported regardless of the fact that such conflicts are "…an important factor in the recurrent food crises characteristic of sub-Saharan Africa, since it deters those in rural areas from

Focusing on age-long conflict resolution mechanisms in Nigeria, and using the Mbaduku-Udam crisis bordering on territoriality to make a case, an extensive study [53] identifies "…land space and the resources available as one of the causes of…conflicts in Nigeria". Not alone on that stance as other scholars [54, 55] also argue in the same light and conclude that territoriality in the sense of land area occupies centrality in inter-intra-ethnic conflicts adding that some of such conflicts date back to historical moments before the independence of Nigeria in 1960. One offers a deeper reason why conflicts rage around land: "The major occupation of most of ethnic groups who inhabit the North-Central Nigeria is farming. The need to acquire and use land for farming has, therefore, been at the root of several crises in this region" [51]. These ideologically differentiated accounts of conflict in Africa sometimes athwart each other seem to fall within the wider anatomic ambience captioned "Structural Causes of Conflict" by The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria [56]. According to the afore-cited institute, structural causes of conflict consists of four main manifestations including securityrelated manifestations of conflict further broken down into proliferation of small arms, corruption of law-enforcement agents, and vigilante groups; political manifestations of conflict including political conflicts, succession and dethronement

**160**

being disrupted by conflicts between and among themselves. The study sought evidence-based data to generate a body of scientific knowledge to achieve its set target. To carry out the experiment, we selected a Nigerian agrarian community we found as ideal and involved people from different sides of the dialogue on the agriculture-conflict interface to track how the impact of conflict ultimately affects Africa's development experience. To further enlighten ourselves on what we found from the field of ethnography, we consulted as many related studies we found relevant on the subject. Our project led to finding on how conflict amid agricultural production constitutes a most unfriendly environment ending in many very costly consequences for farmers and society at large.

This study found that intra-inter-ethnic conflicts in Nigeria as with other parts of Africa almost always revolve around land and resources related to land on the one hand, and that whereas conflict between communities and ethnic populations is unavoidable it has however become something so intricately entrenched in politicization by the elite from both sides of the warring camps, on the other. This, in itself, contributes to why no meaningful resolutions are achieved when communities lurk in conflict. This is besides the claim of many that the official government of the land does not seem to have any interest in installing and maintaining effective, responsive, sustainable conflict management apparatus. This makes people feel on edge especially in those areas that are characteristically conflict-prone. In line with the foregoing, it was found that the consequences associated with conflict amid agricultural production include loss of human lives and property; destruction of farmers' farms and granaries, looting of both farmers' and investors' assets; fall in agricultural productivity directly associated with fall in the area of land farmers cultivate; displacement of farming communities that usually end in unsafe refugee camps; hunger and malnutrition; high cost of agricultural and other goods; exposure to different diseases especially the endangering of women and young girls who are preyed upon and end up with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that further debilitate them; prolonged hold placed on education, medical and other social services; fear and horror in addition to protracted trauma and lasting psychological shock; increased outmigration especially by young adults who leave behind their vulnerable family members. The ultimate effect of all these impacts of conflict among conflicting farming populations is that they produce a constellation of drawbacks that militates against regional development in Africa. For, it takes healthy, able-bodied human beings operating in healthy, socially and politically stable environments to remain productive in what they do in order to develop themselves and develop their communities. It takes healthy human beings who stay on in production and in self-development to realize and sustain the ideals of development in Africa, all of which is in keeping with the defined ideals of the democracy of development in Africa and everywhere.

It is our conclusion, therefore, that where and when farming communities lurk in conflict over land and related resources, everything comes to a halt as their communities separately yet collectively stop growing especially in situations when government leaders take too long to take action and sometimes none at all, as our observations so far suggest. We suspend all policy-related recommendations at this time till more is done on this ongoing study. As such we project ourselves into other desired but yet unexplored aspects of this study including but not limited to engaging government officials in conversation beyond what is said in official publications; spending more time with farmers for more detailed data collection on statistical figures in light of the human and social cost of conflict in order to better inform policy recommendations. In pursuit of these goals, this self-sponsored study intends to involve more participants hoping to get to needed funds to break into these new grounds.

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**Author details**

Jude Uwaoma Nwachukwu

Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: jun2101@tc.columbia.edu

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Agricultural Production Amid Conflict: Implications for Africa's Regional Development*

*Symbol of Benue State Pride—"Food Basket of the Nation" (the picture above was captured at Makurdi,* 

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86613*

*Benue state capital on July 20, 2013 by the researcher).*

**A.Appendix**

**Figure A1.**

*Agricultural Production Amid Conflict: Implications for Africa's Regional Development DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86613*
