Highlands and dryness: Drought has caused conflicts among Niger's Fulani herders, who are grazing their cattle on farmers' lands. Photo: Marco Longari/AFP
IIn the border town of Gaya, a 69-year-old Nigerian farmer waits for a long-distance truck to take him home. He clutches a bag of fertilizer he bought in his neighboring country, Benin.
Niger has been experiencing shortages since 2019, and restrictions were made even more restrictive when the Economic Community of West African States imposed sanctions following a military coup in July.
“Everything stopped with the coup,” Mamadou says in Zarma. Food prices in the landlocked country rose nearly 25% during the months of sanctions, which were not lifted until February.
Long before the political crisis, Niger's food production began to fall victim to increasingly harsh conditions as the Sahara moved south and drought degraded the soil.
“Each harvest season, the production decreased until there was nothing left,” says Mamadou.
Many farmers have been forced to leave the country.
“But I'm too old to leave,” says Mamadou.
Salimata, 35, was a farmer in Niger. She was still young enough to leave her home. She currently works as a domestic worker in Benin.
“The problem in Niger is that the rain has completely disappeared and has been replaced by months of drought.
“But when it rains, there are floods and crops are destroyed. It's a hopeless situation,” she says.
At least 50 people died in floods in Niger between August and September last year. The General Directorate of Civil Protection said more than 3,000 cattle were killed and 3.9 tons of food destroyed.
Dry weather isn't all that great, especially for livestock farmers.
“Our cattle numbers are dwindling and one by one they are dying of hunger and thirst due to lack of grazing space and water,” says Abu, a Fulani pastoralist.
Pastoralists move south in search of pasture, where the Zarma tribe, including Mamadou, farms.
That's a recipe for conflict.
“My brother and I took the cattle to another area to graze, but we ended up in a conflict with the Zarma tribe, which almost killed them.
“The only option is to leave this magical land,” Abu says.
He said a passerby (trafficker) would help him and his brother cross to Benin and then to Spain's Canary Islands.
They will join other West Africans on the perilous journey to Europe. In the first six weeks of this year, 11,704 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands, and Spain's Interior Ministry estimates that 70,000 will arrive by the end of the year, up from just under 40,000 last year.
Niger has stopped cooperating with the EU to stop migrants. In November, the new military government led by Brigadier General Abdulrahmane Tierni repealed the 2015 anti-immigration law.
However, not everyone can afford to pay passersby for migration. For the poorest families, the remaining options are even more heartbreaking.
A farmer with 15 children and two wives said he gave up his two daughters, ages 15 and 17, for marriage.
“Our farm helped us put food on the table. But now everything has fallen apart.
“I think if we get married, our daughters will be better taken care of and we will suffer less,” he says.
Niger has one of the highest child marriage rates in the world, with 75% of girls married by their 18th birthday and 28% by the time they turn 15, according to the advocacy group Girls Not Brides. I'm married.
Fishermen on the river that separates Benin and Niger see much of the despair around them as rooted in inaction on climate change.
He wants African governments to do more than just attend environmental summits.
“Very good speeches are read, promises are fulfilled, but there is no follow-up. Why do we always wait for the West or the big polluters to help us?” he said. says.
“They can start small with their own resources and wait for foreign powers to improve the situation.”
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