When Nigeria’s Benue State Anti‑Open Grazing Law was passed in 2017, it brought hope that pastoralist herders would move to ranches, farmers would gain peace, and violent conflict between herders and farmers would ease.
The law banned the open grazing of livestock and required herders to establish ranches instead. It introduced fines, jail terms, and a livestock-guard task force to monitor compliance, shifting livestock management from communal routes to fenced ranches.
For decades, tensions between farming and herding communities across Nigeria’s Middle Belt have erupted into deadly violence.
