KANO: Weeks into Nigeria’s crucial annual rainy season, farmers across the north are abandoning their lands due to attacks by armed groups, threatening the food supply of Africa’s most populous country.
Jihadists and “bandit” gangs specializing in kidnapping for ransom and cattle rustling terrorize communities in northern and central Nigeria, where they launch deadly raids and impose levies on farmers wishing to access their own fields.
Some farmers, after paying ransoms, have no money left to pay the “taxes” to access their land. Others flee, leaving behind uncultivated fields in a country where millions go hungry each day.
“The risk of food shortage is very high due to a huge number of farmers not having access to their farms as a result of attacks by bandits and insurgents,” said Ya’u Tumfafi, an official at Kano’s Dawanau grain market, said to be the largest such trading center in west Africa.
“There is bound to be a huge gap between demand and supply which will definitely drive food prices up,” Ya’u said.
