Farmer-herder tensions ignite across Africa
In the face of droughts and demographic shifts, competition for resources is intensifying and clashes between farmer and pastoralist groups are on the rise.
In a nutshell
- Ethnic groups in Africa are often divided along pastoralist-farmer lines
- Environmental factors are exacerbating resource competition between these groups
- Government and foreign intervention can spur these conflicts
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Africa has enormous agricultural potential. The continent holds about 65 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land, and agriculture contributes over 20 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). Yet, this promise remains untapped due to factors such as exposure to natural hazards, low technology adoption and weak farmer-to-market connectivity.
Africa’s share of global agricultural production remains low, as countries struggle to support the rapid demographic growth, particularly in urban areas, where in some cases, the population has tripled in the last 30 years. This population growth – the continent is projected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050 and peak at 2.8 billion by 2060 – coupled with urbanization is driving dietary changes and increasing demand for livestock-based and processed foods.
Livestock farming (an activity which, globally, accounts for approximately 40 percent of agricultural value) plays a crucial role in food security. In Africa, there are approximately 268 million people – 22 percent of Africa’s population – who depend on livestock like cows, goats and camels for their livelihoods. However, in the past two decades, environmental factors including severe droughts and soil degradation have created increasingly tough conditions for these communities, who must now find new sources of water and food for their animals. These shifts have affected food availability, and are now resulting in heightened tensions between pastoralists (livestock-focused workers, or “herders”) and farmers (crops-focused workers).
The meaning of land
Any analysis of the rising tensions between pastoralists and farmers must take into consideration the importance of arable and pasturable land on a continent where over 60 percent of the population are smallholder farmers who rely directly on the land for survival. To understand the growing frequency and intensity of pastoralist-farmer conflicts across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, it is essential to examine the role of land in Africa and its deep connections to identity and belonging.
While this may seem unusual from the urbanized, individualistic perspectives dominant in Western societies, land in Africa holds significance beyond its economic value, carrying deep personal and even spiritual meaning. Tensions between farmers and pastoralists are a reflection of settlement and resettlement patterns over time and across the continent, which have been shaped by geography, culture and history.
The same land may serve different purposes for different communities, such as farming, pastoralism, hunting, gathering or conservation. In addition, the use of land can shift, sometimes abruptly, due to environmental hazards, conflicts, population displacement or changes in legislation.
Facts & figures
Sahel on the move: Migratory pastoralist routes
In Africa, land rights and laws are deeply rooted in history and politics, following a layered framework that incorporates customary practices as well as written and unwritten laws. Customary land tenure systems remain vital in many communities, but in several countries, the state is playing an increasingly dominant role through reforms, formal regulations and large-scale land acquisitions by foreign investors. In regions such as West Africa, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, the insecurity of a land owner’s tenure makes it difficult to use and transfer land. This, combined with the weakening of traditional dispute resolution mechanisms, is fueling conflicts between herders and farmers.
State intervention upends traditional farming
While farmers and herders in many cases have a complementary relationship, as animals help fertilize the land and improve soil quality for a better harvest, these two groups often find themselves competing for the same resources. Land is a fixed asset, a tangible resource which provides value over time. For many communities across Africa, especially in West Africa, East Africa and the Sahel, the same land, or the same water source, may be available to multiple users, because tenure and access rights are unclear. However, each person’s use of land may reduce access or the amount available for others.
Unsurprisingly, tensions become more likely in periods of scarcity. Scarcity may be triggered by multiple factors, such as droughts, overharvesting, demographic pressure or when land is allocated for different purposes, restraining or blocking access to previous users. Irregular rainfall patterns, for example, may force transhumant pastoralists to change their routes.
Facts & figures
What is transhumant pastoralism?
Transhumant pastoralism is the practice of managing livestock nomadically. Vertical transhumance refers to movement from high mountains to low valleys, while horizontal transhumance refers to movement across plains or plateaus. The word comes from the Latin: “trans” meaning across, and “humus” meaning ground. The degree of nomadism of the herders varies. Sometimes, only a few people accompany the animal herd on their journey while the majority of the population remain at a base, while other times the entire population moves with the herd.
Moreover, these conflicts (which are more severe in West Africa, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa) become more likely when occupational distinctions are rigid and accompanied by cultural and ethnic divisions, for example between settled agricultural communities and nomadic herders. They also tend to become more intense when one of the groups expands from subsistence or small-scale exploitations to larger, more profit-seeking operations.
The growing involvement of external actors is intensifying conflicts between pastoralists and farmers by disrupting traditional, community-based dispute resolution mechanisms. State intervention, for example, can take the form of restricting grazing, banning farming along livestock corridors, or implementing large-scale land reforms. These measures often leave one group feeling marginalized.
These interferences are more likely in areas with abundant natural resources, like Democratic Republic of the Congo or in northern Mozambique. They are also common in border regions where non-state armed groups and trafficking networks coexist with cross-border transhumance, as observed, for example, in the tri-border region of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
The many shapes of rural conflict across Africa
Land conflicts in Africa take different forms. Reflecting the legacy of settler colonialism, land has retained a deep political meaning in Southern Africa. After independence, it remained a contentious issue and, in some countries, like Zimbabwe, land is still used as a tool for political patronage. Conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, however, are less common in this region.
In East Africa, land-related tensions played a significant role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, during which 800,000 Tutsis were killed. One key and often overlooked factor that divided the Tutsi and Hutu groups was their distinct occupations: Historically, Tutsis were cattle herders, while Hutus were primarily farmers. This divide became particularly acute in the context of land scarcity, as Rwanda was the most densely populated country in Africa at the time.
More recently, in Kenya, where 80 percent of the land is arid or semi-arid and about 20 percent of the population relies on livestock, recurrent and increasingly violent armed clashes between pastoralists and farmers have occurred due to the scramble for fodder, food and space, particularly in the northern and eastern regions.
But there are two regions where conflicts between pastoralists and farmers have become particularly frequent and intense: the Sahel area of West Africa, and the Horn of Africa in the continent’s east. The mounting clashes reflect a convergence of factors, including armed conflicts, demographic growth and displacement.
In the Horn of Africa, in countries like Sudan and Somalia, and unlike in West Africa, pastoralists tend to hold a higher social status than farmer communities. Among Somali clans, livestock is traditionally a mark of wealth and status. In Ethiopia, ethnic and regional conflicts are accompanied by occupational differences, as groups compete for grazing land: Whereas the Oromo are predominantly pastoralists, the Amhara and Afar are predominantly farmers.
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In West Africa, tensions between these groups have been rising over the past decade in Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso, amid a worsening security situation and proliferation of armed groups in the Sahel. In contrast to Somalia or Sudan, in West Africa pastoralist groups tend to be politically marginalized. The Fulani, one of the largest ethnic groups in the region and predominantly devoted to nomadic pastoralism, for example, are often seen as outsiders by sedentary farmer communities, and are more exposed to food insecurity. In several countries, anti-grazing laws are perceived by nomadic pastoralists as a form of discrimination.
Moreover, the migratory routes of many pastoralist communities do not align with modern state boundaries. This creates difficulties when it comes to questions of who has the right to use certain lands, and the status of these groups in the multiple countries they traverse. As such, many nomadic pastoralists are at risk of statelessness and in extreme cases, expulsion, as experienced by the Fulani who have at multiple points in the past decades been driven out of Ghana, Sierra Leone and Mauritania.
Scenarios
What do the origins and triggers of farmer-pastoralist conflicts reveal about their potential evolution?
Tensions between these groups have existed for centuries, typically manifesting as local, sporadic, low-intensity events. However, their frequency and severity has increased. Key triggers include geopolitical events such as the disintegration of Libya and its ripple effects across the Sahel, the resurgence of deep-seated identity divides, resource scarcity driven by changing rainfall patterns and soil erosion, and state-driven shifts in land allocation. These triggers are all interwoven, as well as being difficult to predict and control, particularly those related to environmental hazards, but two paths forward are visible.
Most likely: As food insecurity grows, rural communities migrate to cities
Under the most likely scenario, instability will persist across the Sahel, particularly in countries like Sudan, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. This will be driven by ongoing insurgency, the rise of armed groups with various agendas, population displacement and external interference. Second, resource scarcity will likely worsen for pastoralists and small-scale farmers as large-scale land investments continue, driven by land shortages in other regions of the world. As arable land attracts more foreign investors, governments across Africa are expected to increase their involvement in land management, which will intensify conflicts over land tenure and use by traditional owners. In this scenario of ongoing instability, the risk of food insecurity will grow, further fueling rural-to-urban migration and “survival migration.”
Moderately likely: Shift to larger-scale farming brings growth, but also disruption
In the long term, technological innovation and improved connectivity are expected to boost productivity and profitability for both livestock producers and farmers, helping to mitigate the effects of resource scarcity. There is significant potential for growth across the continent – for instance, while sub-Saharan Africa holds over 14 percent of the world’s livestock, it accounts for only 2.8 percent of global meat and milk production.
This long-term scenario could greatly improve living standards, but the shift from small-scale to profit-driven and export-oriented activities will likely bring social and cultural disruptions, particularly for pastoralist communities. Governments and traditional authorities will face the challenge of balancing communal land use practices with secure land tenure, a crucial step to enabling more efficient production systems.
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