Abstract
Pastoral livestock production as a primary source of livelihood is increasingly becoming unsustainable due to the rapidly changing social context, perennial cattle rustling, unpredictable climatic conditions, and rapid population growth. Migration in response to these changes in social context has often increased competition for land and natural resources between the farmers and pastoralists. Using survey data from 1,750 agro-pastoral households, this study examines the impact of cattle rustling and relative deprivation on shaping the patterns of migration in Nigeria. The results of linear regression show that the loss of livestock, cattle rustling, income diversity, literacy, and herd size are significant determinants of migration patterns. These factors were instrumental in the households’ decision to migrate transitorily or permanently. While the findings indicate that relative deprivation is a significant push factor, migration in response to deprivation and cattle rustling may not necessarily decrease inequality due to weak social capital among the agro-pastoralists. In this sense, increasing pastoral social and economic capital is critical to the reduction of inequality and competition for natural capital. As such, rural livelihood enhancement intervention embedded within the context of a conflict mitigation mechanism is required to decrease the perceived relative deprivation.
Highlights
Pastoralism as a livestock-based livelihood is regarded as a major component of agribusiness, which supports the income streams of households in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and serves as an important strategy for reducing poverty (A. Ibrahim et al, 2018)
This study revealed some critical challenges affecting the sustainable development of agro-pastoral communities vulnerable to cattle rustling in Nigeria
This study analyses the roles of cattle raiding migration within the relative deprivation (RD) framework
Summary
Pastoralism as a livestock-based livelihood is regarded as a major component of agribusiness, which supports the income streams of households in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and serves as an important strategy for reducing poverty (A. Ibrahim et al, 2018). Fulani, who account for 4% of Nigeria’s population (Ducrotoy et al, 2016), are still key to cattle production in the country. The second class is the settled Fulani who stand in sharp contrast to the nomadic Fulani. This class of Fulani arguably comprises the descendants of the aristocratic elite who were previously referred to as the Hausaland (Ducrotoy et al, 2018; Majekodunmi et al, 2017). The last category of Fulani (as the main focus of this study) is the agro-pastoralists ( called semi-sedentary Fulani), who combine crops with livestock production as their main sources of livelihood
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