Abstract
Disagreements amid farming communities and herders are now a common occurrence in Nigeria. The research investigated the roots and impact of these battles among farmers in rural communities in Abia State. 135 randomly selected crop farmers were used. Structured interview and Focus Group Discussion data were collected while descriptive statistics and mean scores were used for analysis. The outcomes indicated damaging of crops (M = 3.6), burning of range land (M = 3.6), population growth (M = 3.8), uncontrolled grazing (M = 3.2) and scarcity of freshwater (M = 3.8) were the major causes of farmer-herdsmen conflicts while such factors as loss of human and animal lives (M = 3.24), abandonment of some crops to avert conflict with herdsmen (M = 3.6), destruction of crops (M = 3.1), displacement of persons (M = 2.7), insufficient food supply to the farming communities (M = 2.7) and loss of income (M = 2.6) were the major effects of the conflicts on the livelihoods of the farmers. Therefore, the settlement, socioeconomic life, and production outcomes of crop farmers were affected, culminating to dwindling effects on the living standard of farmers. The study recommends that the need for co-habitation, regular and strategic orientation of resources' users should be established.