Govt Asked To Check Issue Of Land Grabbing By Multinationals

Eighty percent of the poor in Ghana live in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions of the country. Thirty-six percent of children under five in the Upper East Region also suffer from chronic malnutrition whilst 34 percent of the people in the Upper West Region are food insecure, according to the World Food Programme.

Most of the lands available are fertile for cropping but the climate and vegetation in these areas are similar to that of Sahelian countries. Majority of the people (estimated 80 percent) farm for a living and yet farmers have to contend with a single, increasingly erratic rainy season which lasts from June to November every year.

Even so, the area still has a great potential to produce a bulk of the country’s staples including rice, maize, millet, guinea corn, beans as well as yam, sweet potatoes, groundnuts, bambara beans, soya beans, among others if mechanized agriculture (comprising of tractor services, irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide subsidies) is aggressively pursued and sustained by successive governments.

But even before the aforementioned are pursued with all the political will and commitment, multinationals in the last four years have been grabbing thousands of hectares of farmlands from unsuspecting indigenes with several mouth-watery promises for them whilst in some cases, the promises are but a hoax.

In the quest for biofuel plantations, and for export food crops to their nationals, foreign countries and corporations are grabbing land in Ghana and throughout Africa mostly through foul means.

Reports suggest that foreign companies now control 37 percent of Ghana’s crop land. The cultivation of jatropha, an energy plant, is pushing small farmers particularly women farmers off their land. Valuable food sources such as shea nuts and dawadawa trees have been cleared to make way for plantations. A total of 769,000 hectares have been acquired by foreign companies such as Agroils (Italy), Galten Global Alternative Energy (Israel), Gold Star Farms (Ghana), Jatropha Africa (UK/Ghana), Biofuel Africa (Norway), ScanFuel (Norway) and Kimminic Corporation (Canada).

According to the Central Intelligence Agency World Fact Book, Ghana has 3.99 million hectares of arable land with 2.075 million hectares under permanent crops. This means that more than 37 percent of Ghana's cropland has been grabbed for the plantation of jatropha.

For instance, Biofuel Africa in 2008 allegedly took advantage of Africa’s traditional system of communal land ownership and current climate and economic hardship to claim and deforest large tracts of land in Kusawgu, Central Gonja District of the Northern Region with the intention of creating “the largest jatropha plantation in the world”.  

Bypassing local authourities, and using methods that dates back to the days of colonialism, this investor reportedly claimed legal ownership of these lands by deceiving an illiterate chief to sign away 38000 hectares with his thumb print. By the time the community realized that they were cheated, 2600 hectares had already been deforested.

Biofuel farmer in Ghana

Thus, as the world marked International Day of Rural Women and World Food Day celebrations in October 15^th and 16^th respectively, women farmers in the Northern Region at a day’s forum organized in Tamale by ActionAid-Ghana, called on the government to check the issue of land grabbing by multinationals and other individuals before a lot of them were denied the right to food.

The forum, which was meant to highlight the challenges that farmers faced, also saw participants calling on all the presidential and parliamentary candidates of the 2012 elections to make clear cut policies that focus on women smallholder farmers by making available subsidized farm inputs, tractor services and irrigation facilities so that they could engage in crop production all year round.

The women also reiterated their appeal to the government to make available more agric extension officers to go round farming communities to educate farmers on current best farming practices that would culminate into good harvest at the end of every cropping season.

Acting Northern Sector Programmes Manager of ActionAid-Ghana, William K. Boakye observed that, in order to ensure that farmers contributed their quota to the development of the nation, their challenges in accessing productive resources must be acknowledge and supported.

According to him, ActionAid believed that domestic responses should involve strengthening transparent, accountable and accessible national land governance, and advocates for securing women’s access to land; securing and protecting land tenure for individuals and communities and effectively regulating external land investment.

Meanwhile, the first International Day of Rural Women was observed on 15 October 2008. This new international day, established by the UN General Assembly recognizes “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”  

The World Food Day on the other hand was proclaimed in 1979 by the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Its aim is to heighten public awareness of the world food problem and strengthen solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty. It is observed on 16^th October every year.