Conflict Resolution Strategies Among Farmers In Taraba State Nigeria

Agriculturalists and pastoralists tend to differ from each other both regarding principles and practices of land use. For instance, many disputes often occur around water courses where farmers grow vegetables in dry season and herder's water cattle there. If crop damage occurs and it does frequently, conflict occurred when vegetable farmers claim right to grow vegetable around the water courses and the herdsmen should stop destroying their corps. However, the herders will perceive this act as sabotage, indicating that their cattle need to be watered somewhere. The conflicts in Taraba State have been over land resources and the settler phenomenon. In the conflict large settlement were burnt and villagers were murdered. The Nigeria government believe in resolving conflicts by using force. The international community has gone beyond the level of brute force. Conflict resolution cannot be achieved in that way. This brutal method will not only drive violent conflict parties underground the remaining parties will make those vestiges regroup and fight back in a vicious manner, thus escalating the conflict situation in the area. Hence attempt made to resolve these conflicts by governmental and non governmental agencies only calm the conflict but could not provide sustainable resolutions to the conflicts that necessitate this study. Opinion research sampling technique was used to generate sustainable conflict resolutions from farmers. The local government that witnessed violent conflicts were purposively selected. One hundred and twenty eight farmers were randomly selected from the list of farmers kept by extension agents in Taraba State Agricultural Development Programme (TADP) . Data were collected using interview schedule and analysed using frequency counts, percentage, chi-square and regression analyses .Finding revealed that mean age of farmers was 40.5 and 72.1% had one formal education or the other. Prominent causes of conflict in the area were agitation for farm land and scrambling for political power between the settler and land owner as rated by 72.1% and 62.2% farmers respectively. Concerning level of involvement in the violent conflicts 70.0% of the farmers consented that they were actively involved. Farmers 90.6% and 95.3% rated clear demarcation between grazed land and farmland and farmers should compensate landowners for using their land respectively. There is significant between farmers personal and socio economic characteristics of the farmers and farmers' level of involvement in the conflict. Hence, there is need to search for farmers oriented solutions to conflict in order to make recommended solutions to conflict sustainable in conflict ridden areas.