COMMUNAL CONFLICTS OCCURRENCE AND EFFECTS ON FARMERS’ ACCESS TO AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES IN BENUE AND NASARAWA STATES, NORTH-CENTRAL, NIGERIA

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INTRODUCTION
There is growing concern for provision of effective and sustainable agricultural extension services to majority of small-holder farmers in whose hands the bulk of agricultural production is left. Small-holder farmers belong to a Complex, Diverse and Risk (CDR) prone agriculture, which supports several millions of people in Africa. The importance of agricultural extension system therefore, remains that of service delivery to enhance the ability of these farmers to respond to old problems and meet new opportunities (Adzenga, 2019).
Conflicts in the utilization of natural resources such as land continue to perpetuate poverty among famers and hinder agricultural development in Nigeria. The authors stressed that communal conflicts has posed as strong retrogressive factor towards technical progress in agricultural development, nation building and food security. The percentage of land and labour put into agriculture in Nigeria have decreased over time due to conflicts, desert encroachment and aridity thereby diminishing the level of agricultural production (Adisa and Adekunle, 2010).
The fact remains that in spite of the prevalence of communal conflicts, it is apparent that agricultural activities still continues in the crisis area since that remains the major source of livelihood for the people. However, there is uncertainty on the accessibility of extension services by farmers and conduct of extension activities by extension personnel as extension staff may be afraid of the risk of residing or moving into the crises area for extension service delivery. It is against this background that the study examined the effects of communal conflicts occurrence on farmers' access to agricultural extension services (Adzenga, 2019).
The aim of the study was to examine the extent to which occurrence of communal conflicts affects farmers' access to agricultural extension services in conflict prone areas of North-central, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to: i. determine the extent of farmer's access to agricultural extension services in conflict prone areas of the study; and ii. determine the effects of communal conflicts on access to agricultural extension services by farmers in the study area.

MATERIALS AND METHODS The Study Area
North Central Zone occupies total land area of 296,898 km 2 representing about 32% of the land area of the country. It is located between latitudes 6 0 30' to 11 0 20' North and longitudes 2 0 30' to 10 0 30' East. More than 77% of the people in the region are mostly engaged in one form of agricultural activity or the other. The Zone has two main seasons namely dry and wet seasons, with the wet season beginning towards the end of March and ending at the end of October, while the dry season is from November to March. The rainfall per annum ranges from 1000 to 1500mm with an average of 187 to 220 rainy days, and average monthly temperature ranging from 21 0 C and 37 0 C. The vegetation of the Zone consists of the Forest Savannah Mosaic, Southern Guinea Savannah and the Northern Guinea Savannah (Ojo et al., 2014). The vegetation, soil and weather patterns are favorable to produce a wide spectrum of agricultural food, industrial and cash crops of various types such as rice, yam, cassava, soybeans, millet, cowpea and maize (Tsado, 2013).

Sampling Procedure
Purposive sampling was adopted to select two (2) States (Benue and Nasarawa) from the seven (7) States in North-central Nigeria where communal conflicts occur frequently. The population of the study comprised all farm families in Benue and Nasarawa States, Nigeria. All the agricultural zones in the two (2) States were considered for the study. Seven (7) LGAs that have recorded high incidence of communal conflicts over the years were purposively selected, that is, four (4) out of 23 LGAs from Benue State and three (3) out of 13 LGAs from Nasarawa State, respectively. Eleven (11) extension blocks with high prevalence of communal conflicts were purposively selected from the LGAs (eight [8] extension blocks from Benue State and three (3) extension blocks from Nasarawa State. Twenty-four (24) extension cells that have experienced recurrent communal conflicts were randomly selected (15 extension cells from Benue State and nine (9) extension cells from Nasarawa State). From the list of farm families from each of the cells, 391 farmers (277 farmers from Benue State and 114 farmers from Nasarawa State) were selected through proportionate and random selection using the Taro Yamane formula for determination of sample size.

Method of Data Collection
Primary data were collected with the use of structured questionnaire and interview schedule which elicited information from the farmers and analysed using both descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, mean and Likert-type rating scale) and inferential statistics (Ordered Logit Regression). The empirical model for the Ordered Logit Regression model estimation used in this study is explicitly specified as: Prob. (ACij) = Zij ϴ + τ ij …(1) where; AC = Low, Moderate and High access to agricultural extension services which takes the assigned values of 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Z = Vector of explanatory variables; ϴ = Vector of regression coefficients; and τ = the error term. For this study, Y= β0+β1X1+β2X2+β3X3+β4X4+β5X5+β6X6+β7X7+β8X8+β9X9+β10X10+β11X11+ui …(2) where; Yi = Perception Score β0 = Intercept β1 -β11 =Parameters to be estimated X = is the set of explanatory variables.  Table 1 shows the perception of farmers on access to extension services during occurrence of communal conflicts in the study area. Access to improved farm inputs (x ̅ = 1.25) was considered low by majority of the by farmers in Benue State. This was closely followed by participation in on-farm adaptive research trials (x ̅ = 1.28). Also, majority of the farmers affirmed that participation in agricultural shows (x ̅ = 1.29), trainings on improved practices (x ̅ = 1.29), access to information on proven farming technologies (x ̅ = 1.30), participation in method and result demonstrations (x ̅ = 1.30), visitation of farmers by extension agents (x ̅ = 1.31), meetings with extension agents (x ̅ = 1.32) participation in MTPs (x ̅ = 1.33) and participation in field days (x ̅ = 1.33) were perceived to be low during occurrence of communal conflicts in the study area. Similarly, Table 2 reveals that majority of farmers in Nasarawa State perceived access to extension services during conflicts in the study area to be low with mean scores of less than 2 in the following activities: visitation of farmers by extension agents (x ̅ = 1.04), trainings on improved practices (x ̅ = 1.12), access to proven farming technologies (x ̅ = 1.14), participation in agricultural shows (x ̅ = 1.17), participation in OFAR trials (x ̅ = 1.18), meetings with extension agents (x ̅ = 1.18), access to Farm inputs (x ̅ = 1.18), participation in field days (x ̅ = 1.21), participation in demonstrations (x ̅ = 1.23) and participation in MTPs (x ̅ = 1.32). This result suggests that farmers in the two States perceived access to agricultural extension services and activities to be low in key areas of agricultural extension services which are essential for effective service delivery.  (2017) The pooled result in Table 3 indicates that most of the farmers in the study area perceived access to agricultural extension services and activities to be low in the following activities: visitation of farmers by extension agents (x ̅ = 1.23), trainings on improved practices (x ̅ = 1.24), access to information on proven farming technologies (x ̅ = 1.25), participation in OFAR trails (x ̅ = 1.25), participation in agricultural shows (x ̅ = 1.25), meetings with extension agents (x ̅ = 1.28), participation in result and method demonstrations (x ̅ = 1.28), participation in field days (x ̅ = 1.30), access to farm inputs (x ̅ = 1.31) and participation in MTPs (x ̅ = 1.33). This finding justifies the findings in Table 3 where most of the aforementioned activities were negatively affected by communal conflicts as reported by extension field workers. In this study, the activities which recorded least accessibility were visitation of farmers by extension field workers, farmer group training on improved practices and participation on agricultural shows and OFAR Trials. This result affirms the findings of Robertson and Steve (2012) and Kimenyi et al. (2014) that conflicts hinder the smooth operation of government agencies, ADPs and research institutes operating in affected farming communities thereby, forcing most of these institutions to reduce their activities like field trials and monitoring among others to minimal functions or cancel some activities.

Effects of Communal Conflicts on Access to Agricultural Extension Services by Farmers
As indicated in Table 4, the overall model was statistically significant (LR Chi 2 = 83.80, p = 0.000). The conflict variables that were significant include: frequency of occurrence of communal conflicts, season of occurrence of communal conflicts, category of people mostly affected by conflicts, duration of communal conflicts and period of displacement. Frequency of occurrence of communal conflicts was negative and significant at 1% (z = -3.49) which is an indication that an increase in the frequency of occurrence of communal conflicts in the study area is likely to disrupt the activities of extension field workers, thus making access to extension services by the farmers to be low or even not available because of insecure working situation.
Season of occurrence of communal conflicts was negative and significant at 1 % (z = -3.46) which shows that an increase in the occurrence of communal conflicts during the rainy season would result in low access to the services since extension services are mostly available during the planting seasons when rains are available.
Category of people mostly affected by communal conflicts was negative and significant at 1% (z= -3.69) implying that as the category of young farmers continues to be affected by occurrence of communal conflicts, there is the probability of having low access to extension services. This result is consistent with Idi (2011), Yahaya (2011) and Onyango et al. (2016 who stressed that the major beneficiaries of extension programmes were young farmers (15-45 years) and that the impact of armed conflict on children, youth and their families can be catastrophic and long lasting resulting in long term psychological trauma, poverty, high rate of school dropout and increasingly violent behaviour.
Duration of communal conflicts was negative and significant at 1% (z = -4.84). The result indicates that with an increase in the duration of communal conflicts within farming communities, farmer's access to extension services becomes low due to insecurity and displacement from their communities.
Period of displacement was negative and significant at 1% (z = -5.65). The result showed that increase in the period of displacement of farmers from their communities as a result of communal conflicts could result to low access to agricultural extension services. This implies that farming communities experience consequent interruption of farming and other economic activities across the communities affected by communal conflicts due to the displacements of several settlements. The findings agrees with that of Adelakun et al. (2015) and Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution ([IPCR], 2017) that incessant resource-based conflicts have continued to undermine the impact of agricultural extension service delivery in Nigeria resulting in severe effect on availability to extension services, adoption of improved technology and continued use of adopted technology.  (11) 83.80 Prob > Chi2 0.0000 Pseudo R 2 0.7405 ***significant at 1% Source: Field survey (2017)

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The study revealed that farmers in the study area perceived access to most of the agricultural extension activities to be low as a result of the occurrence of communal conflicts. Frequency of occurrence of communal conflicts, season of occurrence of communal conflicts, category of people mostly affected by communal conflicts, duration of communal conflicts and period of displacement significantly affected access to agricultural extension services by farmers in the study area. In view of the long durations spent in internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps, agricultural extension agencies should institutionalize agricultural extension services in IDPs camps like every other essential service to facilitate access to knowledge and productive resources that will increase their productivity and well-being.