From the small peasants to farmers with relatively large land-holding, Niger's farming community explains to Peoples Dispatch why they support the popular anti-France military government.
The early noon sun shining down the cloudless Sahelian sky in late-November, glistened the sweat on Boubakar's face as he moved nimbly on his toes, crouched low, loosening the soil with rhythmic fast strokes of hand with a small knife to root out the weeds around his potato crops.
Barely 20 years of age, he left school when he was 15 and started farming his family plot of just over half an acre in Djan Gnanway village, a rural district on the outskirts of Niger's capital Niamey which produces 60% of the greens consumed in the city.
"There was no point in continuing with education. Most people I know with degrees don't have jobs," he explained. "So I decided to not waste time and started farming." Farming is the chief means of livelihood for over 75% of the population in Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, now under siege for its defiance of France.
Boubakar has to support a family of six, with only two pairs of hands to work this land. They live crammed in a small straw hut just off the highway to Burkina Faso before the road slopes down the embankment into farmlands sprawling out to the edge of the river Niger.
He expressed confidence that he will be able to sustain his family this season if he can harvest and sell all his produce, including tomatoes, onions and a local breed of greens grown on smaller patches.
Sanctions still haunt the peasantry
"I only hope there won't be any trouble like last year," he said, recollecting the horror with which he had to "bring all my harvest back from the market because the traders had no money to buy." The circulation of money in the local markets had become severely constrained by the sanctions.
Amid mass protests against the Niger government's subservience to its former colonizer France, whose troops were hosted on its territory, the army led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, removed the then-president Mohamad Bazoum in a military coup on July 26, 2023.
Domestically perceived as a puppet of France, his removal was celebrated by popular movements who then supported Tchiani's formation of a military government, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP). The CNSP went on to force the withdrawal of French troops.
In retaliation, France had mobilized the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to impose sanctions, which came into immediate effect without a notice period on July 30, 2023. Landlocked, under-irrigated, with little industrialization undertaken by the former regimes, the country, heavily dependent on imports for even basic commodities like food and clothing, was cut off from supplies as the borders closed.
"Price of rice had more than doubled. It was difficult to eat," Boubakar said, gesturing with his hand that had little fat to cover the myriad veins protruding along his muscular forearms.
"Seeds of onions and tomatoes became scarce. I am still struggling to find enough," complained 63-year-old Oumarou, hoeing a canal in the soil to channel the water from a communal pump to a staple leafy vegetable he had cultivated on his plot adjacent to Boubakar's.
After sanctions came the deluge
The sanctions were lifted in February, two months after France had completed the withdrawal of its troops after trying but failing to mobilize the ECOWAS states to invade Niger. However, the doubling of food prices and even tripling of the cost of some agricultural inputs caused by the sanctions was yet to be offset when another disaster followed.
Read: Niger resists in the crosshairs of sanctions and climate catastrophe
Unprecedented floods caused by excessive rainfall between June and October damaged standing crops on almost 470,000 acres of land, further increasing shortages and driving up prices. "All my younger potato plants and saplings were destroyed," Boubakar said. Only older ones that had already grown barks survived.
Farming alone to support three children and a bed-ridden husband, 60-year-old Zenabu used to grow groundnuts, millets, sorghum and sesame. However, her land, much closer to the waterfront, is still inundated. The Niger River is yet to retreat all the way back to its normal seasonal flow after swelling out onto the banks during the flood.
She has been surviving this season by collecting yula yula, a local fenugreek-like edible leaf which she helps the farmers weed out from their plots on which they grow wild. Showing a full black plastic bag she had collected since morning, she said she would sell half of it for half a dollar to buy rice. Her family would eat the rice with the other half of the reens which would reduce to barely a fistful when cooked.
"Rice is too expensive," she added, repeating the complaint of Boubakar and Oumarou.
53-year-old Salia Zirkifil, a rice farmer with 24 acres in Kandadji, about 200 kilometers northwest of Niamey, assures that the prices will soon see a significant drop as the rice harvest season has just begun.
He expects a high yield this time because he was able to reduce the cost of production with the help of government assistance secured through the peasant association in his village. Formed months before the coup and registered just after, the organization has pooled together over 740 acres of land owned by its members.
Government measures
Ahead of the sowing season, the government provided the association with tractors its farmers used to prepare the soil. It also installed pumps to draw water from the river to irrigate the fields and supplied the gasoline to fuel it.
Seeds and fertilizers were also supplied through the agricultural ministry's National Office for Hydro-Agricultural Development (ONAHA). These were made available at subsidized prices, which "we only have to pay after the harvest. We can pay either money or a portion of our harvest to our association," which then settles the account with the government, Salia explained.
Few could afford to pay these costs upfront, especially coming out of the floods that followed on the heels of sanctions.
ONAHA is also buying the produce directly from the farmers at a remunerative price. One of the reasons for the high price of rice was that the farmers were compelled to export most of their produce because the local market prices were too low for the farmers to make a living, 55-year-old Sirakatou, chairman of the peasant association, told Peoples Dispatch.
Further pressure to export food crops came from the lack of industrialization in the country. All essentials, including cloth for garments, are mostly imported, largely from Nigeria. So it was cheaper for farmers to sell in Nigeria and buy other essentials directly from there.
Exporting food crops to import them back at higher prices
These factors have brought about a perverse market phenomenon, where most of Niger's food crops, especially rice, were exported to neighboring countries, and then imported back for domestic consumption at a higher cost, making the local market prices a struggle to afford. Sanctions and floods drove the prices even higher in this country, ranked 121 out of 127 in the 2024 Global Hunger Index.
To reduce the prices, the government has banned the export of food crops outside the Alliance of Sahel (AES), formed with Mali and Burkina Faso. Having also suffered sanctions by ECOWAS after a similar popularly supported coup driving out the French troops, the two neighbors came to Niger's defense when it was threatened with a war, entering into a military pact that evolved into a political and economic alliance.
Read: The Sahel stands up and the world must pay attention
In the meantime, the government has ensured that the ban on exports outside AES does not adversely affect the farmers by providing support during production and remunerative prices afterward for the portion of their produce bought directly. This combination of measures has begun to drop the prices of millet and sorghum, which the government has already started to purchase from farmers.
Salia is confident that rice prices will also drop once the government begins purchasing the produce as the harvest season progresses.
Djan Gnanway village's small peasants like Boubakar, Zenabu and Oumarou, who mostly produce vegetables and depend on the market for their grain consumption, await keenly. Unorganized, with their small land holdings dividing into ever smaller portions with each generation, they are unable to benefit from any of the programs that the government has introduced for farmers.
"I am planning to begin work on organizing small peasants soon," Aboubakar Alassane, a Nigerien leader of the anti-imperialist West Africa People's Organization (WAPO), told Peoples Dispatch. "Collectivization of land," he argues, is an imperative "to improve productivity and secure remunerative prices for small peasants. The government is providing remunerative prices, but they buy in 50 kg-sacks. None of these small peasants can produce that much on their tiny plots." They have to sell their little surplus "at the local market for lower prices."
Although not a beneficiary of any of the state programs for farmers, Oumaru raises his both hands to the sky, saying the new military government "is a blessing for us farmers." Before the coup, we could not farm every day. We had to check with neighboring villages multiple times to confirm that there were no terrorist movements before stepping out of our homes. Now it is safe. There are still bandits who steal cattle at night. But we do not fear getting shot by terrorists on our farms" in broad daylight anymore.
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"Even with high prices, I have enough strength to feed my family so long as I can farm every day," asserts the 63-year-old husband of three and father of 20, single-handedly swinging onto the narrow shoulder of his bony aging frame his resting spade with a thick wooden handle that stood almost as tall as him.
At a market on the way back to Niamey city, wholesale traders - 27-year-old Issa and his 26-year-old brother - also reiterate that the improved security has been life-changing. "We now drive to Burkina Faso to buy millets, sorghum etc., and bring them back to sell here. But before the coup, this journey would have been suicidal," Issa said.
The likelihood of being killed and looted by terrorist groups ravaging the border areas was prohibitive. With no means of livelihood before the France-backed regime was deposed, the brothers roamed the city, looking for odd jobs, which were not to be found on most days. "It was only because the CNSP secured the route that we have been able to start this business," he explained.
Security was the "greatest need of Niger", especially the farmers who were vulnerable in their fields, and the CNSP has been "very successful" on that front within a year of coming to power, maintains Salia.
Long road ahead
"The next most important need is improving agriculture - to raise productivity and remuneration for farmers," he adds. The programs that the government has rolled out for the purpose are only the first steps, he explains further. Industries are necessary to supply cheap inputs and machinery for agriculture and to produce other essential commodities that farmers can buy locally by selling their produce. "But for that, we need electricity."
While facilitating the cheap extraction of Niger's uranium to power a third of France's light bulbs by fueling its nuclear plants, the former France-backed regimes have done little in their six decades-odd rule to provide electricity to Nigeriens. 85% of the people are still not connected to the grid. "There is not simply enough electricity needed for industrialization," Salia said.
"So the CNSP is prioritizing the completion of the Kandadji dam. Once ready", an industrialization drive can be launched. "We know that decades of underdevelopment cannot be reversed in a year. But," he is convinced that "this government is sincere" about taking this long road ahead.
