Weeks into Nigeria's crucial annual rainy season, farmers across the north are abandoning their land because of attacks by armed groups, threatening the food supply of Africa's most populous country, according to Arab News. Jihadist and bandit gangs that specialise in kidnapping for ransom and cattle rustling continue to terrorise communities across the northern and central states, where they launch deadly raids and impose levies on farmers seeking to reach their own fields.
Ransoms, Then Levies
Some farmers, after paying ransoms, have no money left to pay the levies the gangs demand for access to their land, while others have fled entirely, Arab News reported. In one incident, 39 elders of Magamin Didde in Zamfara State, the epicentre of the country's banditry crisis, were kidnapped when they visited a gang leader's camp to negotiate a peace deal that would allow their community to cultivate its farms, as also documented by African Insider. The captors demanded $92,000 to release them and permit farming to resume.
A National Supply Risk
The stakes extend well beyond the affected communities, because the north produces 70 per cent of Nigeria's grains, which are consumed locally and exported across the region, Arab News noted. The violence has drawn the attention of the International Monetary Fund, which in its annual report on the Nigerian economy warned that a deterioration in domestic security could aggravate poverty and food insecurity, and recommended that the government strengthen protection for farmers and herders.
Farmers' Groups Sound the Alarm
Farmer representatives have warned for months that insecurity is already reshaping production decisions. The All Farmers Association of Nigeria has said that attacks are undermining a cycle vital to national supplies of rice, maize and vegetables, with entire cooperatives abandoning fields that normally feed both households and supply chains, according to Leadership. The disruptions arrive alongside Cadre Harmonisé projections that 34.7 million Nigerians could face acute food insecurity between June and August 2026.
FoodPrices Nigeria tracks verified retail prices for grains and staples across Lagos markets, where supply shocks from the northern farm belt eventually surface in what households pay.