Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana

The study examines the contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic cattle herders in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District. Current studies on the farmer-herder conflict in Ghana have emphasised the conflict between indigenous farmers and nomadic herders. This study has contributed to existing knowledge by highlighting the conflict between two migrant groups. As migrants, both settler farmers and nomadic herders are renting land and, in the process, come into conflict. The tension in the area is that both migrant groups have no ownership of land, which exposes their vulnerability to the landowners in the sense that they have no firm land rights. The study's main objective is to examine the root causes of the conflict between crop farmers and nomadic herders in the case study area of the Afram Plains. The environmental scarcity and political ecology theories were utilised to analyse the conflict in the study area. The study adopted the qualitative approach with the purposive and snowball sampling methods used to select participants for the research. The study's findings reveal that increasing land scarcity due to population growth, climate-induced migration, and large-scale land acquisition is a major cause of the land conflict. The study further reveals that, aside from the core issues leading to land scarcity, what instantly ignites conflict between farmers and herders includes crop destruction, burning of grasses, and alleged vices perpetrated by the herders. The findings of the study also reveal that the mitigation measures put in place to address the conflict have been ineffective because of corruption, poor land governance, and greedy chiefs. The study concludes that the farmer-herder conflict is complex and needs to be examined from diverse perspectives to appreciate the nuances of the conflict.

Grantor

African Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Otu, Bernard Okoampah

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Chitonge, Horman

• land access
• Kwahu Afram Plains South District
• smallholder settler farmers
• Ghana

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/36709

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/36709