Farmers Socio-economic Factors Influencing Resource use Conflicts in a Typical Fadama Area in Nigeria: A Focus on Bauchi State

This study has examined the influence and relationship of socio-economic characteristics of the Fadama Resource Users on conflicts incidence in Fadama areas of Bauchi State, Nigeria. Stratified multistage random sampling was employed resulting to 120 respondents (60 arable farmers and 60 pastoralists). Data were analyzed using correlation and multiple regressions. From the arable farmers, land size, total cost and saving had strong but negative relationship with conflict incident at p<0.001. Education was also negative but significant at p<0.01. Herd size, accessibility to grazing reserve, saving were significant at p<0.001 for the pastoralists. The coefficient of awareness of grazing reserve, experience and education were significant at p<0.01. Gender and saving were statistically significant at p<0.01 and p<0.05, respectively in respect of their influence on conflict for the arable farmers. Education, total cost and savings were all significant at p<0.001, whereas accessibility to grazing reserves were significant at p<0.05 for their strong sensitivity to conflict incident. The outcome of the study revealed strong relationship of all the selected variables with incident of conflict except marital status and experience for the arable farmers. Gender savings, education, accessibility to grazing reserves and total cost had strong influence in conflict incidences. Therefore, the Fadama area communities especially that of the pastoralist needed improvement in their education status and more grazing reserves should be provided by the relevant authority to ease accessibility to pasture and invariably reduce conflict incidences.