ASSESSMENT ON CONFLICT RESOLUTION STRATEGIES AMONG FARMERS IN ORIIRE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Governmental efforts towards the resolution of farmers-herdsmen conflict, Nigeria have not been effective till date. Every attack and clash between the two land users is often accompanied with the deployment of government security personnel's to affected community who are shortly withdrawn after the conflict subside creating avenue for launching of fresh attack more severe than initial one. The study assessed the conflict resolution strategy among farmers and herders practices in Oriire local government area of Oyo State, by describing the socio economic characteristics of the respondents, Identified various factors responsible for farmers and herders conflicts, Ascertain the frequency of occurrence of conflict in the study area. Data for the study was collected with the use of well-structured interview schedule. The schedule which contain both open and close ended questions, which was designed in-line with the objectives of the research work. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed. The first stage involved Purposive selection of Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. The reason for the purposiveness is due to dominance of crop farmers in the area. The second stage involved random selection of 4 cells out of 8 cells which constitute 50% of the total cells in the block. The third stage involved random selection of three (3) villages each from the selected 4 wards to make twelve (12) villages that will be selected. The final stage involved the random selection of 10 respondents from each of the village selected to make a total of 120 respondents that will make the sample size for the study. The study found out that most of the respondents were male, married and also have a medium household size of 5, most were Christians, almost all (92.6%) of the respondents have been in the business for longer time, farming as an occupation and majority of the lands were inherited.