Livelihood diversification amongst pastoralists and conflict with arable crop farmers: Empirical evidence from Kwara state, Nigeria

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.