Implication of Violent Conflict on Food Security in Nigeria: A Case of Farmers and Herdsmen Clashes in the Benue Valley

The emergence of conflicts in many countries has demonstrated another dimension of threat to food security around the world. Notably is the farmers-herders conflict in the Benue Valley, Nigeria which has displaced many farming households in the rural communities from their homes and are currently seeking shelter in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp. The study which employed Focus Group Discussion (FGD), descriptive and inferential statistics to analyse results revealed that the majority of the household were food insecure. Furthermore, they lost their field, food, farm produce, properties and livelihood. they were employing less lucrative copping strategies like, farming for others in areas that were not yet affected by the conflict and their women were also serving as food vendor attendants on market days to help mitigate their challenges. It is recommended that, agricultural intervention should be made available to the displaced farmers to help resettle them into their livelihood and food aid should also be provided to help cushion the immediate effect of hunger and starvation in the IDP camps.