The Benue State Government has endorsed and launched a five-year Strategic Food Security Plan aimed at revitalising agricultural production, improving farmers’ livelihoods and addressing the impact of insecurity on food production across the state.

The plan was recently unveiled under the Enhancing Food Security and Peacebuilding in Nigeria through Strategic Planning Project (EFSPP) and brought together government officials, farmers, academics, traditional rulers and other stakeholders.

Speaking at the launch, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Benjamin Ashaver, urged ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to take ownership of the plan to ensure its successful implementation.

Represented by the Governor’s Technical Adviser on Agriculture, Danjuma Adejo, the commissioner also called on local government councils, traditional institutions and farming communities to embrace the initiative and sustain the collaboration that produced the strategy.

Mr Ashaver formally endorsed the state’s five-year food security plan. He reaffirmed Governor Hyacinth Alia’s commitment to its implementation, including a mid-term review in 2028 and an end-term evaluation in 2031.

He commended the policy team of the Supply Chain Research and Innovation Hub (SCRIH), led by Ajibola Oladipo and Shalem Shiekuma, for developing the plan.

The commissioner, however, lamented that years of attacks by armed herders had displaced thousands of farmers, disrupted farming activities and reduced agricultural output in the state.

“Benue State’s agricultural fortunes have, in recent years, been tested by forces beyond the ordinary challenges of farming. Insecurity has driven farmers from their farmlands. Displacement has fractured our planting and harvest seasons. Land-use conflicts between herders and farming communities have destroyed the trust that once held rural communities together,” he said.

Presenting the Strategic Food Security Plan to the state government, Akange Edward said the document provides a framework for stabilising agricultural production, strengthening land governance, rebuilding rural economies and improving logistics and market systems.

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According to him, the strategy is designed to tackle the underlying factors undermining food production and rural livelihoods across the state.

Mr Edward said the recurring attacks on farming communities had exposed deeper structural challenges affecting both agriculture and peacebuilding.

“The challenge confronting Benue is not merely agricultural underperformance, but structural fragility at the intersection of food systems and conflict dynamics,” he said.

He noted that although Benue is widely regarded as Nigeria’s “Food Basket of the Nation” because of its fertile land, abundant water resources and resilient farming population, insecurity, displacement, land-use conflicts, climate pressures and inadequate infrastructure have significantly weakened agricultural productivity.

The Strategic Food Security Plan is expected to serve as a roadmap for improving food production, strengthening resilience among farming communities and supporting sustainable peace and economic development in the state.

A long-awaited rainfall should have been received with joy by Khalid Umar and other farmers in the Pandogari district of Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State. In these rural communities, a downpour prompts farmers to rush to their fields to spray pesticides and plant seeds. Instead, a recent one became a trap. Within hours of the rain stopping, armed bandits encircled the farmlands on 15 June, forcing Mr Umar to abandon his motorcycle and run on foot for his life.

Some villagers were not as fortunate. That afternoon, the assailants killed Dauda Galadima, a resident of the nearby Ruba village. They also abducted five farmers on their fields, including Nasiru Yakubu and his son, Bilyaminu. After their family paid a five-million-naira ransom, the bandits released the father but kept the son for more money.

A similar attack had occurred a day earlier. Mr Umar told PREMIUM TIMES that bandits raided a farm plantation on 14 June, killing two farmers and kidnapping four women and a man identified as Haruna Dattijo. Upon hearing the news of his abduction, Mr Dattijo’s mother reportedly slumped and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

For peasant farmers, avoiding the fields is not an option. In these rural communities, farming is the sole means of survival. Left to fend for themselves, residents are now devising localised security measures to protect their communities and stave off starvation.

“We are devising local security initiatives just to continue farming,” Mr Umar explained. “We now assign individuals to climb the tallest trees to act as sentries. Their job is to monitor the horizon and alert those working on the ground the moment they spot any suspicious movement toward the fields.”

Yet, even these makeshift early-warning systems are not enough, Mr Umar said. In several parts of the community, agricultural activity has stopped because of the bandits. He estimated that roughly half of the region’s farms have been abandoned.

The rising toll

Since the onset of this year’s rainy season, the violence has escalated drastically. At least nine people have been killed and approximately 20 others abducted in the Pandogari district.

Mr Umar stated that the casualties span all sectors of rural life. Among those killed was Abubakar Idris, a staff nurse at the Kagara General Hospital—the council headquarters—who was murdered on his farm. Recently, he added, the community evacuated the remains of two women murdered on their family farms.

As the rainy season peaks, the window for planting is rapidly closing. Mr Umar warned that without a decisive shift in security strategy to protect the agricultural periphery, these communities face not only the immediate threat of violence but a catastrophic food crisis.

The limit of military operations

While a military base is stationed in Pandogari town, locals argue that its current operational strategy leaves the surrounding agricultural areas highly vulnerable.

A resident, Garba Haruna, noted that the soldiers are static, adopting a defensive posture instead of launching offensive operations into the bush.

“The military base is strategically positioned on the bandits’ primary transit route, effectively blocking them from invading Pandogari town itself. However, recognising this bottleneck, the bandits have simply altered their path by bypassing the military checkpoint,” Mr Haruna said. “The armed groups are now filtering directly into the isolated farmlands—areas where the military cannot provide security cover—and picking off vulnerable farmers one by one.”

Birnin Gwari – Kaduna State

In June, tragedy struck the Kuyello District of the Birnin Gwari Local Government Area in Kaduna State when armed bandits invaded the Kujijiro farmlands, killing at least nine farmers. According to local sources, the victims were working on their fields when the heavily armed attackers suddenly arrived and opened fire.

Ishaq Kasai, a security expert and community leader, told PREMIUM TIMES that farmers in the Birnin Gwari axis are routinely killed or abducted while working their land.

The attacks dealt a blow to the fragile peace in the Birnin Gwari Emirate, which had been brokered by the government between armed bandits and crop farmers. The region, regarded as one of Kaduna State’s primary agricultural hubs, is now facing a resurgence of violent crime.

In a separate incident on 15 June, armed bandits killed another farmer in Kasuwar Magani, a village in the Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The victim, Baba Bala—popularly known within the community as Sarkin Daji—was reportedly killed on his farm.

On 3 July, in the Birnin-Gwari Emirate, armed bandits attacked local communities, killing at least nine farmers and abducting an unspecified number of villagers.

On that day, the attacks began around 3 p.m. Residents said the bloodshed was triggered by a failed robbery attempt in which two armed bandits had attempted to snatch a farmer’s motorcycle.

A resident, Ibrahim Garba, said the incident ended in the death of one of the bandits.

“The other bandit fled and returned with a heavily armed gang that unleashed a ruthless assault on farmers working in the vicinity, killing nine of them”, Mr Garba narrated.

Local authorities confirmed the names of some of the deceased as Habibu Danko, Zaharaddin Gumu, and Maibaka Mayana. Others are Umar Maibaka, Yusufu Dankatakaki, and Shaf’iu Kagadama.

Mr Garba said this latest massacre followed another attack on 2 July, when armed bandits killed a man identified as Ya’u Gayam on the Birnin-Gwari–Kaduna Road and stole his motorcycle.

“The situation is becoming unbearable. Our people cannot even go to their farms without facing the threat of attack,” the distraught resident, Mr Garba, lamented.

The security commissioner in Kaduna State, Sule Shuaibu, and that of Niger State, Maurice Magaji, did not respond to phone calls or text messages from PREMIUM TIMES in the course of this story.

The agricultural sector and challenges

In 2026, Nigeria’s agricultural sector has an optimistic growth trajectory. Data from Veriv Africa’s Macroeconomic Outlook 2026 reveals a thriving non-oil sector, with agricultural commodities dominating the nation’s export growth. The report projects stable growth in agriculture throughout 2026. Currently employing approximately 45 per cent of the national workforce, the industry remains a vital engine for economic expansion, even as structural bottlenecks frequently cap its full potential.

Nigeria’s agricultural sector demonstrated progressive improvement throughout 2025, laying a strong foundation for the current year. Agriculture contributed over ₦17.8 trillion to the nation’s GDP in the third quarter of 2025 alone. By the end of Q3 2025, the sector’s total output reached ₦30.5 trillion, with crop production accounting for 66 per cent of that value.

According to the 2025 Agricultural Performance Survey (APS) Report by the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), the sector recorded sustained growth in key staples—including maize, rice, sorghum, millet, cowpea, yam, and cassava—compared to 2024. This surge in productivity was driven by improved extension delivery and technology integration, which ultimately contributed to a nationwide reduction in food prices. Furthermore, farmers demonstrated remarkable resilience by expanding their acreage and adopting modernised farming practices.

This domestic strength translated into a formidable presence in the global market, heavily supported by liberalised trade channels through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In the first half of 2025, Nigeria’s non-oil export earnings surged to $6.11 billion, spurred by rising global demand. Total export volume reached 8.02 million metric tonnes. Cocoa and its derivatives led the charge, accounting for $1.99 billion of the total export value.

These metrics underscore a banner year for the agro-sector, creating strong momentum that is projected to carry into 2026.

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However, despite these statistical triumphs, long-standing systemic vulnerabilities continue to stifle productivity and threaten to undermine 2026 growth projections. The primary threat to the sector’s expansion is a persistent climate of insecurity. The North-west and North-central regions remain particularly volatile, creating high-risk farming environments. Security breaches have forced many smallholders, such as those in Pandogari district, to abandon their land, resulting in a significant loss of cultivated acreage and potential crop output.

Despite reports of successes in military operations in those areas, farmers struggle to cultivate more land as the country fails to provide tangible, localised security measures for rural agrarian communities. While Nigeria’s agricultural sector possesses immense momentum and global market appeal, its long-term expansion will remain strictly capped until the government successfully secures its primary production zones and addresses core infrastructural deficits.

Local authorities and community leaders warn that if the military fails to flush out the bandits and reclaim the rural spaces decisively, the total collapse of this farming cycle will spike food prices and trigger widespread hunger.

When Halidu Musa received a phone call on the afternoon of 30 July 2025, he did not expect it to be the last time he would hear his father’s voice alive. His father, Musa Yatsu, the vigilante commander of Gurfata village in Gwagwalada Local Government Area of Abuja, had gone to the farm with colleagues to verify reports of renewed destruction of crops allegedly linked to herders. Moments into the call, Halidu said the conversation turned chaotic as gunshots erupted in the background and voices shouted warnings that they were under attack. In what would become his final conversation with his father, Halidu recalled hearing him struggle to communicate as violence unfolded around him.

By evening, Musa Yatsu was dead. His killing would become one of the most defining moments in a chain of violence that residents say did not begin in 2025 but had been building for years through unresolved land disputes, misinformation, weak mediation structures, and what both farmers and herders describe as abandoned peace agreements that were never fully enforced.

Interviews with community leaders, farmers, herders, security officials, and victims’ families indicate that the crisis in Gurfata did not begin with killing but with disputes over land use and access between farmers and herders. The traditional ruler of Gurfata, Adamu Pada, said the immediate trigger began between June and July 2025 when herders allegedly attempted to create a passage through cultivated farmland. According to him, farmers rejected the attempt, leading to a confrontation that was eventually separated, but not resolved.

The disagreement, however, did not end there. Residents say a second confrontation occurred shortly after, during which a farmer was allegedly attacked with a machete and taken to the hospital, where he later died the same day. That death, according to several accounts, marked a turning point in the escalation of tensions in the community as fear and suspicion deepened on both sides.

While the community was still mourning, another incident unfolded along the same stretch of the farming corridor. Halidu Musa said vigilantes were deployed after renewed reports that farms were being destroyed. He explained that the team, which included his father, went to document what was happening on the ground in order to report back to authorities. However, instead of documentation, the mission ended in violence when the vigilantes reportedly walked into an ambush. Mr Pada said the herders had hidden in the bush and launched a sudden attack that led to the killing of Musa Yatsu, the vigilante commander. Residents claim that at least nine individuals were identified in connection with the attack, although arrests remain disputed within the community. Mr Pada insisted that those responsible were known but had not been arrested, while the police maintain a different position.

The Nigeria Police Force, through the FCT Police Public Relations Officer, Josephine Adeh, said farmer–herder disputes in the area are usually handled through mediation rather than prosecution. She explained that whenever incidents are reported, both parties are invited for dialogue aimed at settlement, adding that no arrests were made in relation to the recent killings. This position, however, contrasts with the accounts of residents who believe that the absence of prosecutions has contributed to a sense of impunity and recurring violence.

The violence in Gurfata has left behind a long and painful trail of deaths and injuries spanning several years. Community accounts indicate that as far back as 2020, residents such as Labaran Musa sustained injuries in farmland-related confrontations, while in 2024, Shuaibu Gimba was also injured in a similar incident. In May 2025, Hamza Yakubu was killed, followed in June by a series of injuries involving Abdul Abubakar, Auwal Musa Lana, and Abraham Moses, also known as Manya. The escalation reached its peak in July 2025 when Dahiru Yakubu was killed on 29 July, followed by the killing of Musa Yatsu on 30 July, the same day Isa’ac Abubakar sustained gunshot injuries and Sa’ad Yakubu was also injured. For families affected, these are not isolated statistics but repeated losses that have reshaped entire households and deepened distrust in the possibility of lasting peace.

A relative of Dahiru Yakubu said the killings were preceded by years of unresolved disputes over farmland boundaries and repeated cases of crop destruction. He explained that despite repeated complaints to both community leaders and police authorities, no lasting solution was achieved, leaving residents increasingly frustrated and vulnerable to further escalation.

The herders, however, present a different interpretation of the conflict. The Chairman of Miyetti Allah in Gwagwalada, Ibrahim Chiroma, said increasing expansion of farmlands has significantly reduced available grazing routes, forcing cattle into closer contact with cultivated land. He argued that this pressure has made coexistence more difficult and stressed that earlier informal systems of dispute resolution, where farmers and herders directly negotiated compensation for damage, have broken down over time. He also said that livestock deaths caused by suspected poisoning have increased, and that over one hundred cattle may have been lost, although this figure could not be independently verified.

Security agencies and community leaders confirmed that multiple peace meetings were held in Gurfata involving traditional rulers, security agencies, and local authorities. The Officer-in-Charge of the State Security Service (SSS) in Gwagwalada, Sarah Ebeh, said early warning signals usually trigger immediate intervention and that meetings are often convened between both parties whenever tensions rise. She confirmed that a peace accord was reached but declined to disclose its contents, describing it as confidential. She also stated that since the intervention, the SSS had not received any new complaints, although residents dispute this claim, insisting that tensions remain and that cattle continue to enter farmland in some areas.

Efforts to obtain full responses from the Gwagwalada Area Council revealed partial disclosure. The media aide to the chairman, Ibrahim Yamawo, said the administration intervened in collaboration with security advisers and confirmed that a farmer–herder peace committee was established to address recurring tensions. However, he also acknowledged that no compensation had been made to victims or affected families despite the reported losses and destruction. Repeated attempts to obtain further clarification from the council leadership were unsuccessful.

Across all interviews conducted in Gurfata, three recurring issues emerge as central to the escalation of the conflict. Residents describe how misinformation and rumours of retaliation often spread quickly between farms and settlements, shaping perceptions before facts could be verified. Mr Pada, the community head, explained that rumours of impending attacks frequently circulate within the community, creating fear and heightening tensions even before formal mediation can take place. Farmers, on the other hand, argue that misinformation is also reinforced when reports of farm destruction are either delayed or dismissed, allowing frustration to build. Herders say they are also affected by misinformation, particularly allegations of deliberate cattle poisoning, which they argue fuels suspicion and retaliatory thinking.

READ ALSO: SSS releases herder wrongfully detained for two years, gives N3 million compensation

The second recurring issue is the weak enforcement of peace agreements. While both sides confirm that peace accords have been signed at different times, there appears to be little or no structured monitoring mechanism to ensure compliance or address violations when they occur. The third issue is the reactive nature of security interventions, in which authorities tend to respond after violence has already escalated rather than preventing it at the early warning stage.

For Halidu Musa, the crisis is no longer a policy discussion but a personal loss that defines the reality of Gurfata. He said his father went to the farm not as a fighter but as a documenter of destruction, believing that official intervention would follow. Instead, he was killed in the line of duty, leaving behind a family and a community still searching for answers.

The Gurfata crisis ultimately exposes a deeper governance gap in rural conflict management, where repeated mediation efforts are not matched with enforcement, early warning systems are not backed by preventive action, and peace agreements exist without accountability mechanisms to sustain them. Today, the community remains caught between competing realities, with farmers insisting their land is under pressure, herders arguing that grazing routes are shrinking, and institutions maintaining that peace exists even as residents continue to live with fear and uncertainty. In that gap between agreement and enforcement, the violence in Gurfata continues to find space.

(This report was commissioned with support from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) under a journalism support initiative funded by the Open Society Foundations.)