Highlight: Beyond Scarcity: Understanding the Drivers of Farmer-Herder Conflicts
Conflicts between farmers and herders, more precisely between pastoral, agro-pastoral and agricultural communities, arise when land uses and livelihoods compete for the same resources. These conflicts are most common in settings shaped by environmental variability, demographic change, changing land-use patterns, and weak or contested governance. Although often portrayed as inevitable clashes between two distinct groups, farming and herding practices frequently overlap within the same communities.
Prevailing narratives frequently present such conflicts as rapidly increasing and primarily driven by climate-induced resource scarcity. However, evidence tells a more complex story. Violence linked to farming and herding generally follows wider patterns of insecurity, and in many areas negotiated coexistence remains the norm, even alongside localised hotspots. Reducing these dynamics simply as “farmer–herder conflict” risks oversimplifying a reality shaped by underlying drivers, including land tenure arrangements, marginalisation, governance failures and the weakening or exclusion of customary institutions.
This overview brings together key research, policy reports, evaluations and selected multimedia sources on pastoralist–farmer conflicts and related resource-based livelihood conflict across Africa. Taken together, they make a compelling case to move beyond scarcity-based explanations towards approaches that recognise mobility patterns, strengthen inclusive governance, and address the political and historical dimensions of resource competition under climate stress. It offers researchers and policymakers a concise entry point to relevant evidence and analytical perspectives.
Weathering Risk: Research and Policy Publications
- Multi-Level Approaches to Sustainable Peace in Nigeria’s Middle Belt (2025)
Geographical scope: Subnational
This outcome evaluation assesses the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue’s climate-sensitive peace programming, which addresses farmer–herder conflicts in Nigeria’s Middle Belt between 2022 and 2024. It examines HD-facilitated dialogue processes and natural resource-sharing agreements in Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba states, where land and water disputes are intensified by climate and environmental pressures. The evaluation finds that these agreements have contributed to reduced violence, improved cooperation between farmers and herders, restored access to markets and livelihoods, and the establishment or strengthening of local peace infrastructures. Overall, the report illustrates how integrating climate and environmental considerations into peace processes can support more sustainable resource management and reduce the risk of recurrent farmer–herder conflict.
Partner: Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue – This publication was produced as part of the Weathering Risk Peace Pillar
- Africa Climate Security Risk Assessment (2024)
Geographical scope: Continental and regional
This continental climate security assessment identifies natural resource management conflicts as a major and growing climate security risk across Africa. Drawing on regional analyses of Northern, Western, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, as well as cross-regional systems such as the Sahel, Lake Chad Basin, the Congo Basin and major transboundary water basins, it situates farmer–herder and pastoralist–agricultural conflicts as one expression of wider livelihood, mobility and resource governance dynamics. The report emphasises that conflict outcomes are shaped primarily by governance quality, political economy dynamics, marginalisation and historical legacies rather than resource scarcity alone. It rejects monocausal explanations and instead highlights mobility, nature-based solutions and inclusive, participatory governance, including locally grounded resource management and peacebuilding approaches, as key entry points for reducing climate-related security risks.
Partner: African Union
- Climate, Peace and Security Study: Uganda, West Nile sub-region (2023)
Geographical scope: Subnational
This study analyses competition over land, water and forestry resources in Uganda’s West Nile sub-region, where climate change, environmental degradation and rapid population growth linked to refugee inflows place increasing pressure on livelihoods. It examines land and natural resource conflicts with deep historical and political roots, including state involvement, contested authority and legacies of marginalisation. While not centred on pastoralism, the report documents resource-based livelihood conflicts affecting farming and agro-pastoral communities, and highlights intersectional vulnerabilities, particularly heightened risks for women and girls related to resource collection and exposure to gender-based violence.
Partner: World Food Programme
- Climate, Peace and Security study: Somali region, Ethiopia (2023)
Geographical scope: Subnational
This study analyses climate-related risks to livelihoods, mobility, governance and social cohesion in Ethiopia’s Somali Region. It identifies five climate insecurity pathways, including livelihood and resource competition, climate-induced displacement, regional spill-over effects from conflicts in Somalia, intersectional vulnerabilities and governance tensions. Farmer–pastoralist conflicts are discussed as part of wider competition over scarce water, grazing and farmland, intensified by recurrent droughts, changing transhumance patterns and the erosion of customary land governance. The report emphasises how climate change and its impacts create severe risks for food systems and human security, undermining peaceful coexistence between people and communities. It outlines entry points such as conflict-sensitive rangeland management, dialogue and resource-sharing arrangements between farmers and herders, linking customary and formal governance institutions and climate-smart agricultural practices.
- Climate Security Study: Kenya (2023)
Geographical scope: National (with subnational focus on Arid and Semi-Arid Lands)
This report analyses how climate change affects food systems, livelihoods, and security in Kenya, particularly in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands where pastoralism is central. It identifies four climate–security pathways, including increased competition over land and water between farmers and pastoralists, altered mobility patterns linked to drought, weakening of pastoral conflict-resolution mechanisms, and water scarcity leading to displacement. The study highlights how these dynamics can contribute to resource-based conflicts, including farmer–herder violence, and provides recommendations for climate-resilient livelihoods, rangeland and water management, conflict-sensitive adaptation, and support for pastoral mobility, primarily to inform World Food Programme programming.
Partner: World Food Programme
- Climate Risk Profile for Eastern Africa (2023)
Geographical scope: Regional
This climate risk profile provides regional projections for Eastern Africa, highlighting rising temperatures, increasing rainfall variability, droughts and floods, with implications for agriculture, pastoralism and water availability. It emphasises that climate impacts are likely to increase human mobility and exacerbate existing vulnerabilities in an already politically fragile region. The report notes that increasingly unpredictable precipitation and shrinking grazing resources contribute to resource competition and displacement, heightening conflict risks in herder-dominated settings such as Somalia. It outlines adaptation priorities including climate-resilient infrastructure, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable rangeland management and addressing gendered vulnerabilities in farming and herding communities.
Partner: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and is a product of the AGRICA project, the Weathering Risk project and the Brazil East Africa Peru India Climate Capacities (B-EPICC) project.
- Climate peace and security assessment: Mali (2022)
Geographical scope: National
This assessment analyses how climate and environmental change interact with conflict and inequality in Mali. It traces four climate-security pathways: how climate change and conflict undermine livelihoods and social cohesion; how weak governance and corruption exacerbate tensions around natural resources; how increasing competition over land and water fuel violence within and between communities; and how climate insecurity reinforces existing inequalities, including gender-based violence. Pastoralist–farmer conflicts in central and northern Mali are discussed as part of wider resource competition dynamics. The report emphasises that violence emerges through the interaction of climate stress with governance failures and marginalisation, and provides recommendations for conflict-sensitive climate adaptation, inclusive natural resource governance, and strengthening social cohesion, including to reduce risks of conflict spreading to southern Mali.
Partner: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Climate Diplomacy Factbook: Case Studies
- Pastoralist and Farmer-Herder Conflicts in the Sahel
This case study describes largely local, low-intensity farmer–herder and inter-pastoralist conflicts in the Sahel, driven by competition over land use and access to water. Pastoralist mobility during droughts, agricultural expansion into grazing areas and climate-related changes in land suitability interact with weak governance, pastoralist marginalisation and eroding customary institutions to heighten conflict risks.
- Farmer-Herder Conflict between Fulani and Zarma in Niger
This case study examines farmer–herder conflict between Fulani herders and Zarma farmers in Niger, driven by competition over land and water as herders move southwards in response to environmental degradation and desertification. Local disputes over crop damage and resource access are intensified by weak land governance and overlapping tenure systems, occasionally escalating into violence.
- Farmer-Herder Violence in the Tana River Delta, Kenya
This case study examines episodic farmer–herder violence between Pokomo agriculturalists and Orma pastoralists in Kenya’s Tana River Delta. Competition over land, water and grazing, intensified by more frequent droughts and erratic rainfall, has brought herders into cultivated areas, causing crop damage and disputes that have occasionally escalated into serious violence. Conflicts are compounded by overlapping land rights, agricultural expansion and weak local governance, while political tensions around the 2013 elections further fuelled inter-communal hostility.
- Climatic Changes and Communal Conflicts in South Sudan
This case study examines long-standing communal conflicts in South Sudan that are closely linked to deteriorating environmental conditions and competition over land, water and livestock resources. Changing weather patterns, including decreased rainfall, rising temperatures and more frequent droughts and floods, have increased pastoral mobility and resource pressures, contributing to local tensions between pastoralists, farmers and other communities. These dynamics are deeply intertwined with governance weaknesses, economic marginalisation and broader political rivalries, and have been exploited during periods of civil war and instability.
Climate Diplomacy Articles
- Insights from Fulani pastoralists and host communities in southwestern Nigeria (2021)
This article draws on perspectives from Fulani pastoralists and host farming communities in southwestern Nigeria to examine everyday tensions over land, water and grazing. It shows how climate variability and environmental change interact with weak land governance, exclusionary policies and negative perceptions of pastoralists to shape farmer–herder conflict dynamics, and highlights the importance of inclusive, locally grounded cooperation.
- Urban Elites’ Livestock Exacerbate Herder-Farmer Tensions in Africa’s Sudano-Sahel (2019)
This article highlights neo-pastoralism as an emerging driver of herder–farmer conflict, where urban elites own large livestock herds moved by hired, often armed, drovers who bypass customary grazing arrangements. In a context of climate variability, the militarisation of transhumance and weak accountability intensify resource pressures, fuel identity-based narratives, and aggravate violence, underscoring the role of political economy and governance failures rather than scarcity alone.
- Environmental cooperation as a pathway to resolve Nigeria’s deadly farmer-herder conflicts (2018)
The article frames farmer–herder violence in Nigeria as competition over land and water, intensified by climate-induced pasture degradation, land-use change and agricultural expansion. While climate change exacerbates tensions between Fulani pastoralists and farming communities, it emphasises the role of socioeconomic and political factors and highlights environmental cooperation and improved resource governance as entry points for reducing conflict risks.
Multimedia (Podcasts and Videos)
Podcast episode - Farmer-herder conflicts: Climate change si the straw that broke the camel's back
This podcast episode examines farmer–herder conflicts, highlighting how climate change acts as an additional stressor on relationships shaped by governance failures, land-use change and political marginalisation. It features expert perspectives on the multifaceted drivers of these conflicts and cautions against oversimplified climate–conflict narratives.
BCSC 2025 spotlight session - Weathering Risk Peace Pillar
This session presents evidence from 5 recent evaluation syntheses from the Weathering Risk Peace Pillar, with a focus on climate-sensitive peace programming in Nigeria. It highlights how inclusive dialogue between farmers and herders contributed to reduced violence and strengthened local governance arrangements, drawing broader lessons for managing resource-related conflict in fragile contexts.
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