Group trains farmer, herders on prevention, resolutions of farmer-herder conflict in Edo

The Edo State Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (L-PRES), in collaboration with Global Peace Development (GPD) yesterday trained farmers, herders and other stakeholders on strategies for preventing and resolving conflict between farmers and herders in the state. Speaking during the training funded by the World Bank, the GPD Executive Director, Ebruke Onajite Esike, said […]

The Edo State Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (L-PRES), in collaboration with Global Peace Development (GPD) yesterday trained farmers, herders and other stakeholders on strategies for preventing and resolving conflict between farmers and herders in the state.

Speaking during the training funded by the World Bank, the GPD Executive Director, Ebruke Onajite Esike, said the training was to build participants capacity and contribute to mitigate conflict in violence through conflict transformation and advocacy and

Increase understanding of the impact of violent conflicts on the citizenry and livestock value-chain.

“It will also empower community peace agency members on early warning and early response mechanism and strategy for tracking incidence of farmer-herders conflict and create a path-way for collaborative reconciliation of protracted conflict in Edo State,” he said.

According to him, the participants known as peace agencies will collect early warning instruction that can be used based on data collection to be able to reduce herder/farmers conflict in the state.

“Until people have a clear conversation and dialogue as well as mutual reconciliation that is recourse with justice, then we promote strong peace,” he said.

He noted that there is no one way to solve conflict but mediators must understand the context within the locality before deciding on the approach to use.

He described conflict as the competition for national resources by the players and quest for business expansion, noting that it was not because of ethnic or religion but who control resources and economic.

“The practical solution to conflict is go for reconciliation, but the government often called for cease fire which has never solved any problem.

“Proper reconciliation is not that of I am sorry but reconcilation of justice. If people violate the rules, there must be punishment that would serve as deterrent,” he said.

He added that if people were not punish for offence committed, it became a norm and the only way to maintain peace and tolerance in our locality was to ensure justice by prosecuting those who violated the law.

He, however, charged government to create a committee of peace resilience group at communal level that could collect early warning information that the people could analyse and mitigate before the violence escalate because prevention is cheaper.

On her part, the coordinator of L-PRES in the state, Betsy Ikpikhumi, said the training would Improve livestock productivity, resilience and commercialisation of selected value chains and to strengthen the country’s capacity to respond to an eligible crisis or emergency.

She added that it would also reduce conflict and violence associated with farmer-herder conflict, and as well as other forms of conflict impacting negatively on the economic health of the Edo state.

She charged the participants to pay attention to the facilities as with a view to ensure sustainability after the period of L-PRES elapsed so that the project can continue.