Beyond the violence: How farmer-herder conflict is reshaping rural livelihoods in the Sahel
Rural southwestern Nigeria is not typically considered a conflict hotspot, yet violence there has been on the rise. In 2023-24, there was a 40% chance that a woman farmer in the area lived in a household that suffered crop damage from farmer-herder violence, roughly a one-in-three chance that assets or irrigation equipment were stolen or destroyed, and a one-in-eight chance that someone in her household was physically assaulted.
- livestock
- Sahel
- conflicts
By Katrina Kosec, Lucia Carrillo, Jordan Kyle, and Jeffrey BloemSeptember 8, 2026
Key takeaways
- Farmer-herder conflict in Nigeria and across the Sahel reshapes livelihoods by changing how households work, invest, farm, and plan for the future.
- Adaptation does not always build resilience, as coping strategies can reduce productivity and trap families in long-term vulnerability.
- Women experience conflict in different ways, and effective policies must account for how exposure to violence shapes opportunities, decisions, and aspirations.
Rural southwestern Nigeria is not typically considered a conflict hotspot, yet violence there has been on the rise. In 2023-24, there was a 40% chance that a woman farmer in the area lived in a household that suffered crop damage from farmer-herder violence, roughly a one-in-three chance that assets or irrigation equipment were stolen or destroyed, and a one-in-eight chance that someone in her household was physically assaulted. These statistics from our recent study point to how rapidly and broadly such quotidian forms of violence are reshaping rural life in Nigeria and elsewhere in the Sahel region.
Synthesizing evidence from recent CGIAR studies examining how conflict affects farming households across the Sahel region, with the bulk of the evidence focused on Nigeria, the study reveals a striking pattern: farmer-herder conflict is not simply destroying lives but also transforming livelihoods.
When farmer–herder conflict makes headlines, the focus is understandably on lives lost, communities displaced, and villages destroyed. But recurring, more low-level forms of violence also have major impacts. On top of their immediate harms, they change economic behavior and attitudes, specifically how rural households make a living—what they plant, where they work, how they invest, what they aspire to achieve, and how they prepare for the future. Those changes often persist long after individual attacks have ended, quietly reshaping agricultural systems and rural economies.