For rice farmers at the Ada Rice Farm in Uzo Uwani local government area of Enugu State and the state government the joy of 2024 yuletide was a distant experience. They had worked hard and were expecting a bountiful harvest from the dry season rice farming harvest season this year but herdsmen and their cattle aborted that dream. This followed the invasion of the 1, 500 hectares of rice field in the state a few hours to last Christmas. Herdsmen with their hundreds of cattle heads overran the rice field rendering efforts of the farmers useless. That was not the only damage done by the invaders. They also damaged the Ada Rice Irrigation System. The canal lining project, recently rehabilitated to serve the expansive rice field, was financed by the state government and the federal government using the facility obtained from the African Development Bank, AfDB
The rehabilitation work was done under the bank’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program Phase-One (ATASP-1) was designed to provide steady water supply to the over 1,500 hectares of rice field for dry season farming in the vast agrarian Local Government Area of the State.
One of the affected farmers, identified simply as Chief Ben said, “I speak on behalf of other farmers in the Uzo-Uwani council area whose lives and means of livelihood are in danger as a result of the activities of cattle in our farmlands. We are calling for urgent measures to address this challenge.” He, therefore, appealed to the authorities at all tiers of government to come to their aid. According to him, “It is a challenge because we have witnessed a lot of disruptions as a result of cattle and herders’ activities and despite repeated calls for them to steer clear of this area and allow us to do our farming activities without fear, they kept coming.” He added that “We believe this will derail the Federal Government’s aim to make this area a rice production hub.”
When Ben said the December incident was not a novel occurrence, he was referring to previous invasions that had driven farmers away from their trade, afraid that they could be killed aside from losing their crops. Many of those who lost farm yields to herdsmen invasion during those past experiences cleverly stayed away from the farms, scared by the past experiences, some of which resulted in the death of their colleagues, even as their farm produces were also lost. One of them is a female farmer, Mrs Roseline Monday, who disclosed that she was forced to abandon her rice farm last season due to frequent attacks and killings in the area. She said, “We have been living in fear in recent times and could not visit our farms in far places because of attacks taking place there. “Now, we are excited that the canal has been completed and that we can start dry season farming, but that excitement has gone because of these cows that were roaming about everywhere. “It is a big threat to our farming activities. Apart from damages they do to our crops, they also destroy canals which could also disrupt water flow through the channels.”
The state government is equally sad about the incident. The Commissioner for Agriculture and Agro-Industrialisation, Dr Patrick Ubru expressed pity over the situation. Ubru noted that his ministry was already working to repair the damaged canal, adding that the government was determined to make the Ada Rice Irrigation System work for the farmers and the state in general. “One wonders why herders will allow their cattle to destroy a canal just rehabilitated through counterpart funding and hold the livelihood of thousands of farmers and their families in that area. “We are in the process of taking statistics of farmers in that area, which will use the irrigation system for early (2025) dry seasoning farming before the unfortunate incident.” He , however, said, “We are not deterred, as we are working to get security personnel – vigilant groups, Forest Guard and others – in that area to ensure it does not repeat and the huge investment work for our dry season rice farmers.”
