Africa: Resource Flows and Technology Adoption in Tamale, Ghana: Implications for Urban and Peri-Urban Vegetable Growers

Women who traditionally could not access land except through a male member of kin now have not only access but rights to land in irrigation sites.

By Eileen Bogweh Nchanji
Georg-August University of Göttingen
2018

Abstract:

Vegetable farming in Ghana`s urban areas is mostly a sustainable livelihood strategy. Alt- hough it is considered a means of survival for the poor, vegetable farming is practiced by urban dwellers across the income spectrum. As poverty and urban population increase, so is the need to supplement income with privately cultivated foodstuff.

In Ghana’s Northern Regional capital of Tamale, vegetable farming is constrained by a number of factors including land availability, land tenure security, and access to water. As a result, many vegetable farmers have resorted to cultivating lands along streams and canals, dugouts, wells, broken sewers, and reservoirs.

The scarcity of land for vegetable farming in the urban and peri-urban areas of Ghana is as the result of competition. Farming competes with other land use forms such as industry and housing, both of which attract higher economic rents. The most serious threat to farmers posed by urbanization is the changing land use pattern. Changes in land use have resulted in less availability of prime agricultural land for farming which has lowered agricultural produc- tion, food security, and standard of living. Such is the situation in the Tamale metropolitan area and its surroundings in Ghana’s Northern Region.

This study analyzes the socio-political process by which resource flows are directed towards the production and selling of vegetables in Ghana`s urban areas. It examines how this process is managed by farmers through different governance systems in diverse socioec- onomic environments which prompt them to value the different technologies differently.

I employed a mixed-method approach for this study after a general random sampled survey, and a participatory appraisal was conducted to characterize the urban and peri-urban agricultural system. I collected quantitative spatial data by measuring all open space cultivated areas with a Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Aerial maps were obtained with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and mapped with ArcGIS software. Images from Google Earth maps triangulated farmers’ recollection.

Qualitative data were collected using focus group discus- sions, participatory photography, interviews and participant observation. This study was car- ried out between October 2013 and February 2015.
Results reveal that the area of cultivated farmlands has decreased by 8.3% between 2008 and 2014, even as new vegetable sites emerged in the peri-urban fringes. Even though these farming areas are reducing, vegetable farming is not a temporary phenomenon. It has shown a remarkable resistance against various constraints and maintains a niche without ex- ternal initiative or support as it takes advantage of market proximity, the high demand for per- ishable cash crops and the typical lack of refrigerated transport. Although farmers change their location over time, other open areas – usually those unsuited for construction – have been under continuous cropping for the past century.

This study found that conflict between traditional and government institutions over land ownership and management has inadvertently led to innovative provisioning in vegetable pro- duction in the city, even though it has simultaneously threatened its contribution to food and nutritional security. Innovative strategies for continual vegetable production have emerged as a result of cordial relationships and networks that have developed between farmers and other actors. For example, farmers cultivate public green zones and floodplains which cannot legally be sold by chiefs nor used to construct government buildings. Farmers are also building alli- ances with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) that see urban agriculture as a viable activity and survival strategy for urban and peri-urban dwellers to maintain agricultural activity.

Furthermore, the lack of a legal framework for urban farming in the Tamale area has led to conflicts between traditional and state institutions with implications for land tenure manage- ment systems. The conflict is often between the various chieftaincy institutions, the Lands Commission, the Administrative Office of Stool Lands, and the Town and Country Planning Department. Claim to land and other resources is made through historical recollections, public discourses, and technology. For example, farmers use stories from past events to legitimize their claims over land or restructure development discourses while chiefs rely on public dis- cussions and discourses which support their rights as customary landowners to lay claim to lands. Chiefs also make use of the statutory laws and the 1992 Constitution which empowers the chieftaincy institution and puts within its jurisdiction lands not claimed by the government.

To circumvent boundaries created by chiefs and others, farmers employ technologies such as fencing and pipe-borne water connections systems. Their efforts are supplemented by non-governmental organizations who furnish them with equipment such as solar-powered irrigation facilities, greenhouses, and improved seeds in order to boost their production.

Moreover, women’s access to farmland has always been hampered by the reconstruc- tion of traditions that support male dominance in land affairs. However, some recent policy developments have renegotiated the condition of access to farmlands in favor of women. For instance, the introduction of gender-sensitive agricultural practices on government irrigation sites has resulted in the allocation of plots of land directly to women as opposed to through their male relatives as it was previously done. This has revolutionised the traditional gender roles in agriculture and has empowered women through primary land ownership. Women’s ownership of land on irrigation sites is a novel finding that contributes to the broader literature on gender and resource access in Ghana and Africa.

The theoretical implication of this study is that farmers’ choice of, or relationship to, var- ious local, national, and international actors is not foreordained but is instead based, to a large extent, on pragmatism. For example, by shifting alliances between non-governmental organizations and the government or supreme chiefs, they facilitate cooperation and possible nego- tiation for access and control over resources in their interests. Farmers also use multiple fo- rums like meetings and courts to be able to gain legitimacy and challenge existing governance systems. Actors sometimes ignore or employ distinct strands of governance or undermine them to achieve their aims. These challenges are often used to gain legitimacy for the gov- ernance systems they are allied with. In the process of choosing one governance system over another, a new governance system comes into being. In other cases, combinations of different governance systems are forced to construct new hybrid systems tailored to an actor’s interest.

To conclude, the interplay between the various actors (farmers, traditional chiefs, gov- ernment and non-governmental agencies) is not always a simple case of cooperation or con- flict. Instead, it is a malleable process of mutual reshaping and co-construction of the govern- ance systems which reconfigure gender roles, improve access to scarce lands, and increase food security.

It is my strong recommendation that urban planning policy makers integrate agriculture into the larger discourse about poverty reduction and the alleviation of food insecurity. Green zones and flood-prone government lands in the urban areas which are currently been wasted should be allocated to farmers for food cultivation. This, however, must come with clearly de- fined mandates and guidelines that err on the side of transparency in land allocation and own- ership. Innovative methods such as the farming of vegetables in sacks and other locally suit- able means of maximizing production should be introduced alongside the strengthening of farmers’ capacity to adopt those means.

Read the complete article here.