Violent clashes between crop farmers and cattle herders may have subsided in recent times, but for Benue state, the government is attributing the relative calm to its ability to maintain peace owing to its law and policies prohibiting open grazing.
Riding on the relative peace, the state is looking to attract more investors into the agriculture sector, offering potential agribusiness investors incentives, which include land, clearing, and security.
“We are willing to partner with any private investors or corporate investors that are willing to move into Benue state to engage in agricultural production and other value addition in the value chain of agriculture,” said Timothy Ijir, the Benue State Commissioner for Agriculture in a recent interview.
He told Agribusiness Insight that the state government is willing to assist prospective investors with land acquisition or even land clearing, to enable farmers who are coming into Benue state to have an enabling environment to be able to get access to land resources. The state’s vegetation according to him is suitable for the growth of almost any crop that one wants to cultivate. “We are willing to partner and make the environment conducive for them to do business here in Benue state,” he said.
With violent clashes between crop farmers and cattle herders likely to be a major concern for prospective investors, Ijir explained that in the recent past, there has not been much problems between Fulani herdsmen and farmers. The present administration, he says has taken very drastic steps, even with the enactment of the open grazing prohibition and branches establishment law that has curtailed some of the clashes that used to occur in the past.
Now, “Everybody seems to be on board with the law and events that used to take place in the past where farmers used to clash with the nomadic herders has been greatly reduced,” he said. The government as he further explained is planning to establish commercial farms in some of the state’s border areas and in the riverine areas where the environment is suitable for rice and other crops. This, Ijir says is going to even reduce violent conflicts the more.
As he emphasised during the interview, the Benue state government is willing to provide the enabling environment for people to come in without fear of any of such (violent) incidents happening again.
