Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature reserves. It can also be caused by immobile, travel restricted populations of native or non-native wild animals.
Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming, conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of crop plants and of animals, with higher levels of input and output per unit of agricultural land area. It is characterized by a low fallow ratio, higher use of inputs such as capital, labour, agrochemicals and water, and higher crop yields per unit land area.
A herder is a pastoral worker responsible for the care and management of a herd or flock of domestic animals, usually on open pasture. It is particularly associated with nomadic or transhumant management of stock, or with common land grazing. The work is often done either on foot or mounted.
In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible cellulose within grass and other forages into meat, milk, wool and other animal products, often on land that is unsuitable for arable farming.
Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The animal species involved include cattle, camels, goats, yaks, llamas, reindeer, horses, and sheep.
Agroforestry is a land use management system that integrates trees with crops or pasture. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies. As a polyculture system, an agroforestry system can produce timber and wood products, fruits, nuts, other edible plant products, edible mushrooms, medicinal plants, ornamental plants, animals and animal products, and other products from both domesticated and wild species.
Agriculture is a major sector of the Nigerian economy, accounting for up to 35% of total employment in 2020. According to the FAO, agriculture remains the foundation of the Nigerian economy, providing livelihood for most Nigerians and generating millions of jobs. Along with crude oil, Nigeria relies on the agricultural products it exports to generate most of its national revenue. The agricultural sector in Nigeria comprises four sub-sectors: crop production, livestock, forestry, and fishing.
The extensive and rapid clearing of forests (deforestation) within the borders of Nigeria has significant impacts on both local and global scales.
The environmental impact of agriculture is the effect that different farming practices have on the ecosystems around them, and how those effects can be traced back to those practices. The environmental impact of agriculture varies widely based on practices employed by farmers and by the scale of practice. Farming communities that try to reduce environmental impacts through modifying their practices will adopt sustainable agriculture practices. The negative impact of agriculture is an old issue that remains a concern even as experts design innovative means to reduce destruction and enhance eco-efficiency. Animal agriculture practices tend to be more environmentally destructive than agricultural practices focused on fruits, vegetables and other biomass. The emissions of ammonia from cattle waste continue to raise concerns over environmental pollution.
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting in order to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals who are raised for consumption, and sometimes used to refer solely to farmed ruminants, such as cattle, sheep, and goats. Horses are considered livestock in the United States. The USDA classifies pork, veal, beef, and lamb (mutton) as livestock, and all livestock as red meat. Poultry and fish are not included in the category. The latter is likely due to the fact that fish products are not governed by the USDA, but by the FDA.
Agricultural sustainability in Northern Nigeria requires flexibility in both ecological management as well as economic activity. The population densities of the rural area in this region climbed from 243 to 348 people per square kilometer between 1962 and 1991, but the land area under permanent cultivation remained approximately the same. Increasing population results in high food demand among urban and rural dwellers, areas of cultivation, and reduced soil fertility. However, there are instances where frequent agricultural practices is not associated with degradation such as in Kano and neighboring region. Even though poverty and insufficient food exists in the region, it does not affect crop yield owing to sustained efforts to produce food in response to its high demand.
Ise Forest Reserve is located in Ekiti State, southwestern Nigeria, covering 142 km2, 5° 20.804'E to 5° 25.331'E longitude and 7°21.069'N to 7° 25.579'N latitude in the tropical hemisphere. The protected area is about 9 km to the southern part of the reserve along the Akure-Benin expressway from the Uso community in Ondo State. It remains one of the remaining forest fragments in southwest Nigeria, militated with intense human anthropogenic activities such as farming, logging, and hunting. However, they are considered to be integral and desirable components of forest ecosystems. It is one of the priority conservation areas for the endangered Nigeria-Cameroun chimpanzees in Nigeria with a degrading forest environment. The estimated terrain elevation above sea level is 366 meters. This is the chimpanzees' primary and most frequently recorded habitat in southwest Nigeria. It is also a habitat for about 661 species of butterflies and a large community of other animals and plants. It has been in the spotlight for nearly 20 years. One of the protected sites in the tropical hemisphere is the Ise Forest Reserve. Most of the forests in Nigeria, including protected areas, are under severe fragmentation. The result is that smaller fragments have fewer numbers of animals than the single larger fragments.
Fulani herdsmen or Fulani pastoralists are nomadic or semi-nomadic Fulani people whose primary occupation is raising livestock. The Fulani herdsmen are largely located in the Sahel and semi-arid parts of West Africa, but due to relatively recent changes in climate patterns, many herdsmen have moved further south into the savannah and tropical forest belt of West Africa. The herdsmen are found in countries such as Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, and Cameroon. In Senegal, they inhabit northeastern Ferlo and the southeastern part of the country. In some of these countries the Fula constitute a minority group. They inhabit Northern Nigeria and some parts of the country.
Communal conflicts in Nigeria can be divided into two broad categories:
Herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria are a series of disputes over arable land resources across Nigeria between the mostly-Muslim Fulani herders and the mostly-Christian non-Fulani farmers. The conflicts have been especially prominent in the Middle Belt since the return of democracy in 1999. More recently, they have deteriorated into attacks on farmers by Fulani herdsmen.
The Fulani refers to an ethnic group, the Fulani are group of people whose neighboring farmers are against them in various ethnicities. Nigeria is considered a “melting pot” of different cultural and ethnic groups. Ethnic identification in the country is a complicated amalgamation of primordial and constructivist approaches.
Nomadic conflict, also called farmer–herder conflict, is a type of environmental conflict where farming and herding communities overlap and has been used to refer to fighting among herding communities or fighting between herding and farming communities. This is sometimes referred to as conflict involving “pastoralists” or “nomadic” people and “agriculturalists” or “settled” people. The conflicts usually arise from destruction of crops by livestock and is exacerbated during times when water and lands to graze are scarce.
Anti-Fulani sentiment is the hostility that exists towards Fulani people in Nigeria, Mali and other West African nations and the discrimination that they are subjected to as a result of it. The Fulani are a semi-nomadic ethnic group that is dispersed across several West African countries. Fulani people represent 6% of Nigeria's population.
The majority of Ghana's income and jobs are produced directly and indirectly by the land, which is a vital resource for our nation's prosperity. It sustains the provision of ecosystem services as well as the agricultural, forestry, and fishing livelihoods of the vast majority of people, particularly those living in rural areas. Despite these advantages, there are a number of temporal and spatial factors contributing to the degradation of our land resources, such as deforestation, erosion, declining soil fertility and productivity, deterioration of rangelands, desertification, and deterioration of water bodies.
The severity of desertification in the drylands of the world made the United Nations Organization to adopt a Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) in 1994. Nigeria approved the National Action Programme (NAP) as a primary tool for the implementation of the Convention in 1997.
