Farming and agriculture in Benin: terrorism threatens two vital sectors in the north

“We were captured and driven into the forest in W National Park. We spent six days walking through the park. I saw camps set up by armed groups. At each stopping point, they gave us something to eat and medicine to keep our strength up”, says Boubacar, a herdsman abducted by an armed group. Taken from his home during the night of 6 November 2022 in Malanville, a city in the far north of Benin, on the border with Niger and Nigeria, Boubacar was driven into the forest in W National Park, with two other prisoners. But, according to his account, he managed to escape after six hours of captivity, thanks to an elephant who separated the group.

W National Park, a refuge for armed groups

In the department of Alibori, in the north of Benin, certain activities have been seriously affected by the insecurity caused by terrorist groups. This is the case for livestock farming and agriculture, two vital sectors of the local economy. Heavy activity by Islamic State Sahil Province (ISSP), Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM), Groupe de soutien à l’Islam et aux musulmans (GSIM) and others disturbs the peace of agro-pastoral farmers working in the areas around W National Park.

At the heart of a large biosphere reserve spanning three countries – Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger – illegal operations are being carried out, including fuel, food and livestock smuggling. Most worrying for local residents are cattle theft and armed individuals venturing into their fields. “They regularly come this way to get to their lodges”, says one farmer in his forties. This man, who we met on 3 November 2024 in his field in Mamassi Gourma, a village in the Bogo-Bogo district of the municipality of Karimama, was only prepared to speak to us with his face covered.
For him, reporting the movements of terrorist groups to the security and defence forces is synonymous with declaring war on the armed groups. “We can’t tell who’s who anymore. Even you, Mr Journalist, who knows if you’ve been sent here. I won’t have anyone to look out for me if there are reprisals from ‘aladjis’ (code for terrorist groups, ed.)”, he explains, claiming that local communities have been infiltrated by the armed groups.

Upset and distrustful, he is quick to offer an example: on the night of Thursday 3 into Friday 4 October 2024, unidentified armed individuals shot dead eight people in Zougou, a hamlet of Goroukambou in the Birni-Lafia district, municipality of Karimama. According to witnesses, local residents had detained a man they suspected of belonging to the terrorist network and handed him over to the police. “In retaliation, the armed individuals came by at around two o’clock in the morning, while everyone was sleeping, to challenge the men presumed to have detained their team member. The men were murdered, as a lesson to anyone who might try to report them”, our source says. This horrific act sparked the terror that has seized the village and surrounding areas.

Our source suspects some residents of being in contact with the armed groups. According to his account, everyone involved in detaining the suspect has been identified. “They made an appeal to identify the eight residents before they killed them”, he says. He is not prepared to make any reports himself. Panic has spread through the population of this very small village. Patrols by the security and defence forces are not enough to reassure the residents. “We’re still living here, but with fear in our belly. Families are blaming each other. For them, it was the report that cost us this tragic outcome”, he deplores.

He is not alone. Another farmer in the same region tells us why he gave up his field. “Every morning, we’re stressed about the security situation, when you have to go to the field. The people in the forest (the terrorists, ed.) often lay explosives on the way to the fields. We were lucky in 2023, in that the animals were walking ahead of us. When we got there, we found an enormous hole with dead cows inside. It was caused by an explosion. That was the day we decided to give up the field”, the anonymous farmer explains.

Some 40 kilometres away, to the south-east of Malanville, is Goungoun, where armed groups also operate. This place and its surrounding areas, up to the border with Nigeria passing through the Djona forest in Alfakoara, are plagued by repeated armed raids. One of these incidents, which made a lasting impression, is the attack that took place on the Kandi – Malanville highway in the early hours of Thursday 19 September 2024, leaving three police officers dead.

In the aftermath, access to rural areas became a real challenge for farmers. According to our information, movement regulations were put in place in the area following the tragedy. “No civilian could move around after 16:00 (15:00 GMT, ed.) or before 06:00 (05:00 GMT, ed.)”, explains a security source. They tell us that these regulations were intended to limit movement during troubled times. The measure, although not applied for long, was seen by local farmers as a restriction.

S. Amadou, a farmer who has two wives and seven children, tells us that the situation is complicated for agricultural workers. “Normally we camp in our fields during the labour and harvest periods, to avoid travelling long distances every morning and evening. But with the new security situation, marked by growing insecurity, that will be pretty difficult. Soon it will be the rainy season for the 2025-2026 farming year, we’ll need to be careful”, he says. Mr Kora of Goungoun shares his concerns, and tells us: “The way things are going, farmers will end up abandoning their fields at a time when we’re complaining about the lack of farmable land”. In Boïffo, in the same district, the death of a farmer and his son intensified concerns among locals.

On Saturday 22 February 2025, the village was stunned by the discovery of two lifeless bodies, identified as Séidou Harikiré and his eldest son Abdoul Aziz, who liked to go fishing. Identified thanks to their motorbike, which was also burned in the scrubland, the killing of these Boïffo residents exacerbated people’s concerns about moving around the region. “To go back to the field, we have to think about it a thousand times, especially when the field isn’t round the corner”, says Abdou Latifou.

According to one agricultural agent working in Alibori, some places are inaccessible for security reasons. “In Karimama, there are areas where agents can’t work anymore. It’s the same for farmers who can’t go to these places anymore. The land is abandoned”, he explains. He says that the recently exacerbated security threat is a worry for the agricultural sector in the region. His words were echoed by another agent, whose name will remain confidential for his own safety and to avoid reprimands from his superiors. Working in a district of Banikoara, he’s not ready to return to certain places in the municipality, considered the cotton basin of Benin. “If you value your life, there are areas like Mékrou that you should avoid. Not just us, the agents, but the farmers too”.
Alibori has suffered repeated attacks, including a coordinated attack on two military barracks on 17 April 2025, which took the lives of 54 Beninese soldiers, according to official figures released by the government. With the highest death toll the country had seen to date, JNIM combatants claimed responsibility for the attack on two fortified positions of the anti-terrorist Operation Mirador in Koudou and in the ‘triple point’ border area in W National Park.

The shadow of terrorism hangs over the cattle farming sector

‘Zakat!’ This is the word used by armed individuals to illegally collect or take property owned by farming communities, particularly cattle farmers. While the practice is well established in countries in the Sahel region, where terrorism is rife, it feels new to farm workers in Benin.

“Last time, I was coming back from the field when I heard an argument, where people were demanding that the herdsman hand over one animal per 100 head of cattle. I hid in the bushes so I could hear a lot of their conversations before I ran away. I had to run before anyone saw me because these people started threatening the herders”, says Bagnan, a farmer from Guéné.

Hamadou Kada, in his forties, is internally displaced. Having previously owned a herd of cattle in Oundou-Kouré, a rural part of Toumboutou in the municipality of Malanville, this cattle and crop farmer left it all behind to move to Wolo, a neighbourhood in Malanville-centre. He and his wife and three children, along with over 100 displaced people, live on several hectares landscaped to accommodate people who have fled their homes due to security fears.

The village, now abandoned by over 200 residents, mainly cattle farmers, saw at least five people strangled to death, which witnesses say constituted the trigger for mass departures. Kada tells us how, once a large-scale cereal producer, he has been reduced to a mere consumer.

“I’m forced to seek help to feed my family. Before I left my village (Oundou-Kourè) because of the killings and arrests, I used to harvest seven to ten tonnes of millet and maize every season. I kept reserves to feed my household and I sold the rest to make a bit of money. Now it’s impossible. We’ve all left our land to come here (Wolo, ed.). If no one gives us food, we can’t produce anything here, there’s no farmable land. It’s the same with our livestock. I’ve sold almost everything. I had over 200 head of cattle, but I only have around a dozen now. I was forced to sell them to meet day-to-day needs: health, food and other costs over the last three years”, Kada admits. This agro-pastoral farmer sees a dark future ahead.

Like him, Roukiatou Bouraïma, a 48-year-old mother of five, including two girls, has turned her back on Tondi-Kaouria, a hamlet in Karimama, where she used to live a peaceful life with her husband and children. Here, the sound of gunfire grew deafening, and access to grazing land became increasingly difficult for the farmers. Deteriorating security, exacerbated by sporadic clashes between armed individuals and the defence forces, has compelled families to move to other more or less stable places.

Yet in their new homes, life is turned upside down for these displaced and highly resilient people. “I used to rear sheep and goats. Coming to Malanville-centre, where we’ve lived for two years, I arrived with forty head of sheep. Now, as you can see, there’s nothing left. First of all, there’s no grazing land. Where are we supposed to graze the animals? They didn’t thrive on the scrubland. There’s no space here. A lot of them died”, Roukiatou says.

Kangara, a ghost village

Once very lively, with over 500 inhabitants, Kangara is now deserted. This village in the Birini-Lafia district has been abandoned by its residents, mainly cattle farmers. “They left their homes because of, amongst other things, the ‘taxes’ people were illegally charging under the name ‘zakat’.

Initially, we were promised protection and help to free up spaces and corridors to graze our livestock. In exchange, they took one animal per 100 head of cattle. Under this agreement, residents also had to provide information on the positions of the security and defence forces”, says one farmer who left his village, Mamassi Gourma, in the municipality of Karimama. Beginning in 2022, he says, this livestock tax, which is considered illegal, was ramped up over time and became impossible for the residents, who ultimately abandoned the place with their herds, putting an end to their collaboration with the armed terrorist groups.

Livestock theft, another obstacle for farming.

Imorou Yarou, a livestock farmer in Koara-Tédji, complains about the theft of cattle he had entrusted to a herdsman named Hamadou. “I have a herd of 100 head of cattle with Hamadou. There are a few of us who entrust our animals to him for grazing. But on that Saturday (26 October 2024), he came back without a single cow. The whole herd had been taken by the people in the forest (terrorist groups, ed.)”, Imorou Yarou despairs.

Far from blaming the herdsman, Yarou seems to exonerate him. “For fifteen years Hamadou’s been in charge of grazing our herds. Nothing like this has ever happened before, until that day. It’s hard to bear, but there’s nothing we can do. And the herdsman himself, he could have been killed”, the cattle owner empathises, with no hope of retrieving his herd.

We decide, to better understand the situation, to contact Hamadou. But first we have to meet another victim. It’s taken us a week to get to speak to him, after arranging the meeting. For security reasons, we are avoiding moving around before 08:00 or after 16:00 local time.

Reaching the outer edges of W National Park is no mean feat. Here, distance is not only a matter of geography. It is also infrastructural. Far from the hubbub of development, no telephone network reaches this area. The paths that serve as completely disfigured traffic lanes snake through the scrubland. The first challenge was to brave the state of the road. The next problem is the fear of walking on a landmine. After about three quarters of an hour, we reach Gah Béri, where our contact lives. This is where the livestock dispossession strategy will become clear.

According to the victims’ accounts, the operation consisted of armed individuals threatening the herdsmen with death if they refused to give up their herds. Faced with this threat, the herdsmen fled, leaving the animals with the armed terrorist groups.

“There were three of them that day, with weapons. We met them in the scrubland over there (area in W National Park). They told me to choose between my life and the animals. That if I valued my life, I’d get out of there before they finished me off. I had to run for my life and abandon the herd. A herd that didn’t even belong to me”, recalls B. Moussa, in his 30s, himself a victim of this type of livestock theft. According to his account, the stolen cattle belonged to someone else. “I only had five cows in that group. The rest belonged to my bosses”, the herdsman says.

To get the full picture, he uses witness accounts collected from several local sources. There are so many because Sendé, a remote village in Madécali, serves as an intermediate market for supplying the giant to the east. According to a well-informed local source, after the operations, stolen livestock are driven to Sendé to be sold to traders working between Benin and Nigeria. 

Landmines along the path: the common threat to farmers

“I don’t travel long distances across the scrubland anymore”, admits Soumana, a herdsman in Birini Lafia. He tells us that they sometimes find improvised explosive devices. “Five cows were killed in an explosion last time (Thursday 31 October 2024, ed.) between Mamassi Gourma and Kofonou. It’s not the first time”, he says.

Already in conflict with crop farmers, livestock farmers must now confront the terrorist threat. They have been victims of sometimes deadly attacks by armed groups. In early October 2024, several decomposing bodies were discovered in undergrowth in Boïffo, a village in Guéné.

According to accounts we have collected from other livestock farmers, these were the bodies of three herdsmen from Banikoara, a neighbouring municipality. Looking for grazing space for their livestock, the herdsmen migrated towards the east of W National Park where they were killed. At the site we visit later, with the aid of a guide, the smell of a decomposing body, under a vandalised tent dilapidated by weather conditions, lingers in the air.

Around fifteen metres away, another two bodies lie stiff, skull exposed, faces unrecognisable. The number of animal carcasses and dead bodies illustrates the ferocity of the attack. The air is heavy, laden with tension, as if the place itself were alive, haunted by invisible presences. Every step echoes, every breath is amplified, and the constant feeling of being watched provokes hallucinations and a cold sweat. 

Beside the tent, thirteen yellow and blue gourds and plastic bottles – surely belonging to the victims – are still carefully lined up, but in a state of abandonment. A thick covering of dust proves that the objects haven’t been touched for a while. The bones of animals – around six of them – are strewn around as if in an abattoir. This is a crime scene with an air of horror and dread.

Anyone who dares to venture this way feels frightened. We hurry away from this place that seems to whisper a terrible message, a forgotten history, that only the invisible world can know. 

Faced with these unbearable images, demonstrating the brutality perpetrated by unidentified individuals, more questions arise. The main concerns are these: Who is committing these serial killings? Could they be the actions of an armed extremist group? The problem is that, in addition to terrorism, the region is also in the grip of recurring conflicts between crop farmers and livestock farmers, which have generated fierce competition over natural resources in recent years. Yet the theory of a terrorist massacre is plausible, given the objects of war abandoned on site.

The threat to Benin if nothing is done

Based on the experience of countries in the Sahel region, where terrorism rages, such a ‘tax’ is sometimes imposed. “In the Tillabéri region, armed terrorist groups are consolidating their hold over whole areas, to the great dismay of communities who have been abandoned and receive no help from the State. In the Tamou area (department of Say), JNIM-AQMI terrorists have recently implemented a new law on zakat, which is now 20,000 CFA francs per child per household”, explains Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, a journalist specialising in security issues in the Sahel region, based in Agadez in northern Niger. According to a report by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), these illegal ‘zakat’ charges represent a source of illegal earnings for armed terrorist groups, and therefore an illicit economy. 

Far from being isolated cases, these terrorist attacks in the north of Benin reveal the extent of the security threat. Agricultural and farming communities in the region therefore face an unprecedented crisis. Inevitably, this will have a direct impact on agricultural production in a region known for growing rice, potato, maize, sorghum and other crops. If nothing is done, production may drop in the affected region of the country, which currently constitutes 40% of Benin’s agriculture. The countries of the Sahel region serve as an example in this regard.

According to a FEWS NET report, the security crisis, exacerbated by terrorist attacks, has generated a drop in production in Niger. Their website states that: “According to the most likely scenario drawn up by the Directorate of Agricultural Statistics, production will be around 4.9 million tonnes, down 18 percent and 8 percent, respectively, compared to 2022 and the five-year average. Reductions in agricultural production also follow a decrease in planted areas due to the abandonment of crop fields in over 100 farming villages in the Tillabéry, Diffa, Maradi, and Tahoua regions affected by insecurity.”

In Benin, the areas affected by insecurity are well-known agricultural hubs. Many sources state that the majority of the country’s cereal crops are produced in these regions. “There are actually ten municipalities and districts (Nikki, Kalalé, Ségbana, Malanville, Karimama, Banikoara, Kérou, Tanguiéta, Matéri and Cobly), notably all on the border with Niger or Burkina Faso. These affected areas concentrate huge agricultural potential and supply most of the country’s demand for cereal crops (rice, soybeans, maize, sorghum, fonio)”, say CiAAF experts in an assessment of the food insecurity threatening Benin in light of the rise in terrorism. 

For example, for rice production (stat. 2017-2018), “the affected areas represent 54.48% of national production”. While sorghum was at 48.43%. “At the national level, there is a total production for the reference period of 591,713.2 tonnes of cereal crops overall; this represents 26.95% of national production”, according to figures (2022) from AfriCereal Group.

Along the same lines, the National Agriculture Census conducted in 2022 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, reveals a gradual reduction in cattle numbers in Benin. The cattle population fell from 2,400,000 to 1,964,883 head of cattle, a drop of over 8%, according to the census. 

This constitutes a real threat to food security. Instability in the north of Benin, mainly in Alibori, gripped by the rise in violent extremism, leads to the abandonment of cereal crops and the loss of livestock. Inevitably, the production of cereal crops will drop, and with it the related income. However, Benin is a mainly rural country whose population depends on the agriculture sector. According to an estimate by Integrated Industrial Platforms, this sector provides a livelihood for over 70% of Benin’s population and represents 35% of GDP and 80% of export revenue. In 2022, during the official presentation of the core module of the National Agriculture Census, on 25 January in a hotel in Cotonou, the Director of Agricultural Statistics, Alexandre Biaou revealed that over six million households are engaged in agriculture in Benin. This data makes agriculture one of Benin’s most vital sectors – alongside livestock farming, which also holds an important place for the rural community in the north of the country.