The battle for land in Niger State is no longer just between man and nature; it is now between farmers, herders and miners, with women caught in the middle. From Paikoro to Gurara and Agaie, farmlands are being destroyed and livelihoods are being erased. In this report, Justina Asishana highlights how the women who once fed their communities are now struggling to hold on to their farmlands.

Every morning, Agnes Aynadanyi, a farmer in Daku village, Gurara Local Government Area (LGA), Niger state, walks past deep holes carved into the earth where her millet once grew. She does not need anyone to tell her who dug them – gold miners who have invaded their lands.

Agnes, who started farming three years ago, had always enjoyed bountiful harvests despite the challenges associated with accessing fertilisers and other farm inputs, but she barely got 10 bags of guinea corn from her last planting season.

“When they came, they took no permission from anybody; they just started digging the corner there,” she said, standing near one of the pits and pointing to the edge of the farm.

“Before we knew anything, they started shifting, digging holes everywhere. When we asked them, they said they were looking for gold.

“There was a year I harvested up to 50 bags of guinea corn. But last year, I did not get up to 10 bags because these days, if you plant, nothing grows here. The land is dead.

“Look at the corn I planted recently. You can see that they did not grow very well. The land is gone because of these miners,” she lamented.

Comfort Joseph had to abandon her farm at Dikko ward in Gurara LGA, NigerSstate and move to a farm on Lambatta Road, which is still in the same local government but a long distance from the farm in Dikko ward, in order to be able to farm properly and avoid the menace of the miners who had destroyed her farm.

“These miners have really driven many farmers around here out of their farms, particularly me, and it has drawn the farmers back.

“They made me to vacate the land on which I had farmed for years. I had to get another farm in another village, which is some kilometres away. 

“The way they have affected the land, in 10 to 15 years, no one can farm there and the crops will yield results. The farm I abandoned was where I grew maize, guinea corn and soya beans, and it is very good for those crops,” she said.

The identity of the miners is currently unknown. Some of the affected farmers said some of them come from far northern states like Zamfara, Kano and Kebbi while there are also foreigners who come from Niger and Benin Republic to join in mining.

The Niger State Government had formulated a policy in 2024 banning mining activities across the state, but this has not been heeded as mining activities are still going on across the state. It is very rampant in Shiroro, Munya, Rafi, Paikoro, Gurara and Rijau local government areas.

There are usually enforcement teams from the state’s Ministry of Mineral Resources who go to these mining sites to enforce the no-mining policy. But the enforcement trains are limited by funding, which makes their operations less frequent, leaving room for the miners to operate without restriction.

Farming between fear and loss

Across Paikoro, Gurara and Agaie, miners are not the only concern for women farmers as they are also losing their crops to herders who graze cattle through their fields.

“I planted cassava and I spent a lot of money on it”, said Alice Amako in Agaie LGA, her voice rising with anger. “The cows entered and ate up everything.

“On the money I spent on it before it was wasted, I would say it was up to N200,000.  When I went to complain, the police said they would look into it, but they have done nothing about it till today.”

Sarah Mathew, another farmer in Agaie, who plants rice and groundnut, lamented that Fulani herders unleashed their cows on her farm when her crops had gotten to the stage of harvesting and she lost a lot of money, including the sum she used in hiring labourers to help her. 

“One of my challenges is getting labourers to the farm. I cook for them and pay them. Then, when you plant, the Fulanis will not allow you to harvest what you have planted.

“Even yesterday, they cut my crops for their cows to eat, whereas I have spent so much.

“They won’t even allow us farmers to harvest what we plant.”

In Paikoro, Hannah Bala says she no longer sleeps soundly during the harvest season.

She said: “Sometimes, I go to the farm in the morning and see that my maize and groundnuts have been eaten up (by cattle) overnight.

“Last season, my groundnut and maize were all eaten up; I couldn’t salvage anything.

“If you confront them, they threaten you. They carry sticks and cutlasses.”

The cost of silence

The women farmers say they have learned to avoid confrontation. “It is better to run for your life,” said Comfort about the herders. “If you fight, they can harm you. They have killed people before.”

But running comes at a cost. Many have abandoned their ancestral farmlands and now rent new plots in faraway villages.

“I pay ₦100,000 every year to rent a farmland. We women don’t get free land. If you don’t rent early, you won’t get anywhere to plant.” said Ladi Makun, who farms rice and pumpkins in Paikoro LGA.

Efforts made to dislodge the miners from their lands are often abortive as they return days after they are driven away or arrested by security personnel. Others return at night when the farmers must have gone home.

“We sometimes use police and soldiers to pick them up, but after some days, they reemerge and continue from where they stopped.  We quarrel sometimes. But they have not fought anybody here on my land. They always come back despite everything we do,” said Agnes.

The combination of destroyed farms, expensive rent, and high input costs has left many women with little or no profit. “Before I even start farming, I’m already in debt,” Ladi said.

Mining the soil, killing the land

The miners’ presence is changing more than the landscape. The air smells of burnt earth, and rainwater fills the pits, turning them into breeding grounds for mosquitoes. If a farmer or someone not used to the terrain gets unlucky to falls into the pit, the person gets injured and may end up breaking a leg.

“We used to get 20 bags of corn. Now, even with fertiliser, we get little. The land is tired. The holes are too many. You can fall in and die,” Agnes said.

Mining on fertile farmland has severe and often irreversible impacts, including land degradation, water pollution and the loss of agricultural livelihoods. Environmental experts warn that unregulated mining contaminates soil and water with heavy metals, making farmland infertile for years.

The most direct impact is complete loss and degradation of the soil, which is the primary asset of fertile land.

Open-pit mining, which is the most common method, involves removing topsoil and vegetation to access minerals. This permanently destroys the land’s agricultural capacity. Mining waste, known as tailings, and windblown dust can heavily contaminate the surrounding soil.

This contamination often includes heavy metals like lead, arsenic and cadmium. These metals are toxic to plants, inhibit growth, and can be absorbed by crops, posing a serious health risk to humans and livestock.

Mining is extremely water-intensive and a major source of water pollution, which devastates farming operations far beyond the mine’s immediate footprint.

One of the most serious environmental effects is acid mine drainage (AMD). When sulphide minerals in excavated rock are exposed to air and water, they create sulfuric acid. This acid leaches toxic heavy metals from the rock, creating a highly polluted runoff that can poison rivers, streams, and groundwater. This water becomes unusable for irrigation or livestock, as it can kill crops and animals.

Mining operations also consume vast quantities of water, often diverting it from local rivers or groundwater sources. This directly competes with agriculture, which relies on the same water for irrigation, especially in water-stressed regions.

But for the women farmers, the danger is more immediate: hunger and displacement.

Herders, fear and fading hope

The fear of herders is the beginning of wisdom for farmers, especially women farmers, as the former move about with deadly weapons, ready to attack anyone who prevents their cattle from eating the crops.

In Agaie, Halima Mohammed lost her entire rice farm when migrating herders let their cattle loose on her fields.

“Those Fulani who were migrating allowed their cows to eat up my rice. The rice was already close to harvest, and they allowed their cows to finish my rice.

“I could not farm last year because I could not get money to pay for labour. I wept the day it happened.”

Other women say herders roam freely even in daylight, often daring farmers to protest.

“They behave as if the land belongs to them,” said Sarah Mathew, a rice and groundnut farmer. “If you argue, they will attack you. We are women; we can’t fight them.”

Sado said: “Sometimes, you would be on the farm and maybe a Fulani would be roaming about with his cows around your farm, waiting for you to leave. Immediately you leave, they enter and allow their cows to eat up your crops.

“Some are even more daring. They enter when the farmer is there, daring them to do or say anything. They killed a woman on her farm last year because she tried to stop them from entering.

“They have entered my farm, even recently. My cassava was eaten up, though not all.”

The farmers say they have reported several of the incidents to security agents without results. “Even if the police catch them, they release them,” said Amina Mohammed, a widow from Paikoro. “It is like the herders have more power than us.”

Where the law gets tired

Niger State Governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago, in 2024 announced a statewide ban on mining after a mining incident in which a pit collapsed in Shiroro, burying many miners underground. This stance was reiterated by the Governor in October this year and covers both legal and illegal mining.

During a visit to the Niger State Commissioner of Police, Adamu Elleman, the former Commissioner of Mineral Resources, Alhaji Garba Sabo Yahaya, stated the need for a stronger and more aggressive response to tackle the issue of illegal mining, pointing out that the ministry does not have the required manpower for enforcement of the state government’s suspension of illegal mining.

He appealed to the police and other security agencies to assist the ministry in enforcement.

The Director of Mining in Niger State Ministry of Mineral Resources, Alhaji Umar Yusuf, who spoke to the reporter exclusively, confirmed that a lot of people engage in illegal mining across the state, adding that there are others who are mining legally after being issued mining titles from the Federal Ministry of Mines. 

He said the mineral resources ministry had received a lot of complaints about illegal mining across the state.

Yusuf noted that the normal process in starting mining is to meet with the landowner and the community leaders where certain community development agreements will be reached upon. But many of the miners, both legal and illegal, do not do so.

He stated the need for community residents to report such incidents to the ministry so that they would be aware and consider what to do about it.

“What you do now, madam, anybody that complains to you, direct them to the Ministry of Mineral Resources. Once they come, we will lead them to the Federal Ministry of Mineral Resources to confirm what they would do with those people.”

Yusuf also lamented that there is no adequate logistics to go on surveillance tours across the local government areas where illegal mining is rampant, pointing out that these surveillance tours are supposed to be done bi-weekly.

“One of our problems is that there are no sufficient funds to go on regular surveillance tours. Because if we go and dispatch them today, they will return after we have gone.

“It is supposed to be a continual exercise, like every two weeks. We are supposed to go there with the men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps as back-up. But at the moment, the government does not give us the logistics to carry out that operation.

“For the past four good months, there has been no logistics for us to go on surveillance, especially the logistics for the civil defence like fuelling our vehicles and others.

“All these are not there now. That is the problem.”

The director confirmed that the artisanal miners are very despotic people. He said they can harm anyone who forces them out without security backup.

“They are hooligans. They are very despotic people.

“But in our case, if the government sponsors us, we are able to go there with our surveillance group, with civil defence and the other hunters to talk to them and make them leave.”

The Agro-Rangers and local vigilantes, on their part, try to intervene, but their efforts are also limited by poor logistics and lack of manpower.

The Managing Director of Niger State Mechanization Development Agency, Muhammad Alibaba, said the agro-rangers are not enough in the state but the government is making arrangements to recruit more hands as extension workers and agro-rangers.

Local government authorities promise action, yet the attacks and mining continue.

The Niger State Police Public Relation Officer (PPRO), SP Wasiu Abiodun, said the police have always responded to distress calls including those of illegal and artisanal mining activities in the state, adding that a lot of arrests had been made with exhibits recovered while some of the suspects had been charged to court.

“The Police Command as a responsive law enforcement agency have been responding to a series of distress calls, including illegal or artisanal mining activities in the state, such as the recent incidents in a school at Mutun-Daya, Shiroro LGA, Western Bye-Pass behind El-Amin area, Mechanic area around Angwan-Daji, COE Tungan-goro area and Korokpan, Chanchaga.

“The Command has made many arrests in this regard and recovered a lot of exhibits such as shovels, diggers, head pans, and other dangerous weapons including knives, cutlasses and illicit substances. These suspects were charged to court for prosecution accordingly.”

Abiodun, however, said the challenge at hand was the need for stiffer punishments for these offenders because it has been observed that they mostly pay a meager amount as fine and return to these activities after they are released.

“We hope that there can be a legal framework for stiffer punishment to serve as deterrence.”

Farming on borrowed time

The result of the miners’ invasion of farmlands and herders leading their cattle to eat up farm produce is that more women are leaving farming altogether. Some now work as petty traders while others rely on family support.

Mrs Grace Disa, the Niger State Coordinator of the Smallholder Women Farmers of Nigeria (SWOFON) said that women farmers in Niger East and some parts of Niger South are leaving farming due to the threats from farmers but added that she cannot give the exact numbers.

But for many, giving up the land feels like losing a part of themselves.

“I was born into farming,” said Agnes, gazing at her ruined field.

 “My mother farmed here. Now, even the soil doesn’t know us anymore. We will not stop farming, but we need peace to plant, and land that still remembers us.”

Still, they keep hope alive. “We will not stop,” said Comfort. “We only want the government to protect us, give us peace and land, and we will feed the nation.”

The cries of Niger’s women farmers are not just about lost crops; they are warnings of a deeper crisis. Each mine dug, each herd let loose on farmland, is another wound to Nigeria’s food security. Until the government acts, the women who feed the nation will remain her hungriest.

.This report was made possible with support from the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, (ICIR).”