Last week I started this discussion which generated some reactions especially on the agrifoodnetworks.org section on Foodlog.nl. This issue is very sensitive, and I need to take caution to avoid fueling or contributing to the tribal war already playing out in Nigeria.
To address some of the issues raised:
1. We need to see the Farmers-Herders crisis beyond politics as many have perceived. The issue should rather be viewed as survival of the fittest (livelihood survival). Livelihood which is already being threatened as a result of climate change is affecting every sundry.
2. Every stakeholder needs to embrace farming as a business - be it herding or crop production, with an end result to make ends meet. Thus, every business needs to be invested in to make a good return. This should be the status quo. The business culture should be the only accepted norm and every culture should be subjected to it. Nothing more, nothing less.
3. We need to stop the narrative of referring to herdsmen as "Fulani" which is posing a threat to our unity as a nation. The atrocities perpetrated by some herdsmen should be condemned by all, but we should avoid playing the tribal card which could lead to bigger problems across the Nation (which is currently posing threats as we read)
5. Solving this age long issue as a nation requires a holistic view. Identifying and understanding the root cause (rather than the symptoms) is the first stage in proffering the needed solutions. Let empathy lead and reconciliation follows. Our unity is beyond the interest of an individual!
6. Lastly, our co-existence should benefit one another (herdsmen and arable farmers), we need all hands on deck to achieve zero hunger. This can be achieved when peace and unity is restored, wounds are healed and bridges are amended. It is time to rebuild for a greater future and a better agricultural ecosystem in our nation.
Yours-in-service
Babatunde
In his weekly column Letter to my Farmers, Babatunde Olarewajo writes about personal experiences and insights on farming, curated through working with smallholder farmers in Africa. Last week's letter is available here.
1. We need to see the Farmers-Herders crisis beyond politics as many have perceived. The issue should rather be viewed as survival of the fittest (livelihood survival). Livelihood which is already being threatened as a result of climate change is affecting every sundry.
2. Every stakeholder needs to embrace farming as a business - be it herding or crop production, with an end result to make ends meet. Thus, every business needs to be invested in to make a good return. This should be the status quo. The business culture should be the only accepted norm and every culture should be subjected to it. Nothing more, nothing less.
3. We need to stop the narrative of referring to herdsmen as "Fulani" which is posing a threat to our unity as a nation. The atrocities perpetrated by some herdsmen should be condemned by all, but we should avoid playing the tribal card which could lead to bigger problems across the Nation (which is currently posing threats as we read)
Let empathy lead and reconciliation follows. Our unity is beyond the interest of an individual4. Arable farmers and herdsmen are important assets in achieving food security. No one of them is greater than the other. Arable farmers and herdsmen must be protected including their livelihood. No one should lose their livelihood as a result of another's activities. The government must come out to address these issues with all sense of patriotism without being biased and stop passing blames to the opposition.
5. Solving this age long issue as a nation requires a holistic view. Identifying and understanding the root cause (rather than the symptoms) is the first stage in proffering the needed solutions. Let empathy lead and reconciliation follows. Our unity is beyond the interest of an individual!
6. Lastly, our co-existence should benefit one another (herdsmen and arable farmers), we need all hands on deck to achieve zero hunger. This can be achieved when peace and unity is restored, wounds are healed and bridges are amended. It is time to rebuild for a greater future and a better agricultural ecosystem in our nation.
Yours-in-service
Babatunde
In his weekly column Letter to my Farmers, Babatunde Olarewajo writes about personal experiences and insights on farming, curated through working with smallholder farmers in Africa. Last week's letter is available here.
Otto Kroesen , how does this reflect to your line of thought of an entrepreneurial tribe?
Challenged by Coen I would like to point to the social aspects or challenges involved. It is a pity that Babatunde Olarewaju has to excuse himself by bringing up the issue of intertribal conflict, acknowledging that it is a sensitive issue. It might be better dealt with if it were not a sensitive issue. It doesn’t help to replace the word tribal by the word ethnic, even apart from the fact that the Greek word “ethnos” precisely means “tribe”.
In my book Cross Cultural Entrepreneurship and Social Transformation I differentiated between two systems.
System 1: a social system consisting of tribal loyalties and vertical networks of patrimonialism combined with weak state institutions.
System 2: a social system consisting of an open civil society of continuously regrouping individuals as well as associations and companies under the umbrella of a strong, equitable and accountable state.
African societies are somewhere between System 1 and System 2, in a process of transition, but with many difficulties. The herders – farmers dichotomy is a case in point.
In order to find recognition for this problem as an unavoidable part of African politics, which should not evoke shame, it might help to take a look at Western history. The development of the guilds and city fraternities in Western history was a first step beyond tribal loyalties. Guilds and fraternities are known as professional corporations and their membership was open to everybody, men and women, on the condition that they took an oath on the internal laws and regulations. They are less known for their spiritual element: church services were organized as a daily practice to cultivate and maintain loyalty and teach the members, who were not family of each other, to practice loyalty and solidarity towards each other and not cultivate their family heroes anymore. They were all brothers and sisters now (fraternities!).
Beautiful analysis, Otto, but do you have any practical advice? In a sense, yes. I see many technical advices passing by and they are all good and relevant. But shouldn’t the spiritual problem be addressed as well? Can a sense of shared purpose and destiny be created between the closed we-groups competing with each other now? Church services will not do the trick, because religion is part of the divide between people nowadays. But they can talk to each other and all African tribes, farmers and herders alike, have always known the law of hospitality as constitutive to our humanity from the beginning of creation.
Are there any NGOs working on such a dialogue? Aren’t Western nations exporting their one-sided technological mindset once again (and legitimately so, but alas also exclusively) as the solution while bypassing the spiritual element, which is taken for granted? Are Western taxpayers willing to pay NGOs or religious organizations that are working on such an immaterial thing as dialogue and peace creation?
temporavitae.nl
For those who don't know Otto (yet), please check the interview he granted us last year.
Ikechi Agbugba, could you also give reflection from a supply chain and (business) economics perspective?
@Otto. Very insightful. The spiritual bit you brought into the discourse is powerful and should be explored. I will think through this and give my further opinion. Thank you for this brilliant contribution.