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Until the early decades of the 20th century, local farm household insurance strategies against

crop failure and famine largely consisted of risk-avoidance in cropping systems, grain storage,

livestock accumulation1 and certain features of the social organisation. The partial integration

of the area into a national money economy has not always been considered to have enhanced food security, but it has undeniably opened up new possibilities for insurance and coping strategies. All are based on the fact that money can – usually – buy food.

The 20th century was one of a slow transition from an almost entire reliance on farming to

a more diversified local economy. In the section of the questionnaire that inquired about the household history, I asked the interviewees to tell me a little bit about their fathers. What was his occupation? Did he ever travel to southern Ghana? Some fathers had worked down south for some years. One had been a headman of the Dagara migrants in a southern Ghanaian town. A father of a Sisala respondent had had a successful career in Accra. He started as a charcoal burner, then became a charcoal trader and finally became a ‘big man’ in the housing sector. One respondent’s father had fought in the British army during the Second World War. Some other respondents’ fathers had worked in southern Ghana as miners, charcoal burners or (seasonal) farm labourers. Eventually, most of them returned to the village and took up farm- ing again. In general, the generation before the interviewed household heads did travel south for work, but less than the present generation. In a recent fieldwork among Dagara settlers in the Brong Ahafo Region, I found out that in most villages, Dagara men had been coming for

seasonal farm labour since the early decades of the 20th century, but only started establishing

their own farms since the 1970s. Further evidence of increased out-migration is found in the

1

Before the advent of a money economy, households bartered livestock and grains. In the case of a local crop failure, the affected households could negotiate with relatively food secure households at varying distances to acquire sufficient grains to feed the family until the next harvest. After area wide crop failures, this option was less effective, especially in places with no proximity to long-distance trade routes.

fact that the population of the Lawra district has almost stabilised between 1984 and 2000, whereas in previous decades, the population was still growing considerably (Ghana Statistical Service 2002).

Local income generating activities of the fathers’ generation were mentioned, too. Two interviewees in Burutu told me that their fathers already kept dry season gardens back then, besides their normal farm activities. Two fathers had been butchers. One father used to grow tobacco commercially. One was a fisherman and a mason. One had been a foreman in road construction. The majority, however, stated that their fathers had just been farmers. Some

typical female income generating activities, like beer brewing and sheanut processing, were

also carried out by previous generations. It has only been a few decades, however, since pito brewing became an income generating activity for so many women. In the past, pito was

brewed mainly for celebrations and labour parties.2 Sheabutter, on the other hand, was already

traded and even exported to southern Ghana in the pre-colonial era, when cowries were the exchange medium. In general, the livelihood strategies of the fathers’ generation were based on agriculture and were diversified only to a limited extent. Seasonal labour migration was probably the main diversifying factor in those days.

The picture has changed radically in the past decades. Only three out of sixty households in the sample had no income generating activities outside of crop cultivation and livestock production. These three households consisted of grandparents and their grandchildren. The productive generation of these families was elsewhere in Ghana and remitted money to their relatives in the home village. All other households in the sample had some income generating activities outside farming. This is hardly surprising because the seasonal distribution of rainfall and farm labour lends itself very well to non-agricultural activities. This was already the case in the past, but cash needs and non-farm income opportunities have increased tremendously over the past decades.

Not all the income generating activities outside crop cultivation and animal husbandry are

truly non-agricultural. For my analysis of livelihood diversification, I have included

commercial fishing, dry season gardening, seasonal labour migration, firewood selling and cottage industries like pito brewing, sheanut and dawadawa processing among the ‘non- agricultural’ income generating activities, provided that these activities were carried out on a commercial level, i.e. not for home consumption (cf. Bryceson 1997a: 5). When we talk of

diversification, it is important to assess whether these activities are carried out alongside

normal farm activities. In Nandom Town, some households have fully specialised in activities like pito brewing and trading. These households have abandoned farming. Their livelihoods

have de-agrarianised and not necessarily diversified.3

Livelihood diversification is a process. The starting point in rural areas is a – perhaps hypothetical – situation in which people solely rely on crop cultivation and animal husbandry as their sources of livelihood. In my vulnerability analysis, I assumed that households are less vulnerable to climatic stress when they have other sources of livelihood to fall back on in

2

See also ‘pathway’ of Philibert Maaniasie in Van der Geest (2002a).

3

Note that there is also an important group of ‘alien’ traders who have settled in Nandom Town. The starting point for their livelihoods is non-agrarian. Some have, however, adopted farming in the past decades, especially in the 1970s and 1980s when chemical fertilisers were subsidised and tractor services more readily available. For them, farming was a response to improved opportunities (see Schijf 2004).

times of scarcity. In that sense, I have considered livelihood diversification as a positive development. A critical note comes from Davies:

Livelihood-system diversity [in the Sahel] constantly evolves in response to changing agro-eco- logical and socio-economic conditions. One of the most obvious patterns of change is the incorpo- ration of activities which were reserved in the past for periods of food stress into normal strategies for poorer households. Consequently, when the next cycle of drought hits, resort can no longer be had to traditional fall-back strategies to increase food entitlements. What are perceived to be coping strategies have thus become the livelihood strategies of certain groups. (Davies 1996: 34).

When looked upon from that angle, livelihood diversification is not necessarily a positive development. In the quantitative analysis of vulnerability, I have considered non-agricultural

income generating activities as one of several security endowments (see Table 6.1).

Households that have been forced to diversify their livelihoods score low on other indices of

vulnerability (see also Ellis 1998: 7 and Scoones 1998: 9).

When a household with a diversified livelihood experiences a crop failure, it can fall back on other sources of entitlements to food. This strategy is effective as long as there is money circulating in the local economy, and as long as food prices do not skyrocket. In case of an area-wide crisis, it remains to be seen whether this household can benefit from its non- agricultural income generating activities. In other words, non-farm activities in the research area are not always effective as genuine coping strategies, especially when households have to deal with area-wide trigger events or ‘covariate risks’ (see chapter one for the distinction between genuine and seasonal coping strategies). When a drought or other hazard hits, people do not suddenly take up all sorts of jobs and activities. The in-depth analyses in chapter eight rather indicate the contrary. During area-wide crises, the existing non-agricultural income generating activities often become less profitable because there is less demand in the local economy. Meanwhile, other strategies are adopted to gain access to food, but these strategies – for instance animal sales, calls on relatives and reduced consumption – are often not productive activities. People also diversify their livelihoods by establishing extra-local security networks, usually through the geographical dispersion of families (permanent or circular migration). When the situation is critical for most households in the area, these networks become more important.

Non-agricultural income generating activities are more effective as coping strategies when households have to deal with idiosyncratic, household-specific shocks. When the food and livelihood situation of most households in the area is normal and a certain household experiences a crop failure or other setbacks, this household is more likely to benefit from its secondary or tertiary activities than in situations of area-wide crises. Similarly, as we have seen in chapter six, selling livestock to buy food is a less effective coping strategy in times of area-wide crises when caloric terms of trade between livestock and grains deteriorate. Theoretically, it would be possible to monitor the seasonal and inter-annual changes in terms of trade between grains and different income generating activities. This would tell us much about the effectiveness of coping strategies (see Davies 1996, chapter 9).

Non-agricultural income generating activities in the research area have become fully inte- grated in rural people’s livelihoods. It is debatable to what extent this is a response to deterio- rated conditions in local agriculture, or a response to improved opportunities outside farming. It is probably a combination. Agriculture in the research area is indeed under pressure. A

number of households are still capable of producing their own food needs4, but very few can also meet cash needs by selling off their surplus produce (see chapter six), and that is where non-agricultural income generating activities come in. The overall livelihood strategy of farm households in my research area can be described as follows.

Households try to harvest enough to fill their stomachs throughout the year and they meet additional cash needs with animal sales, seasonal labour migration, non-farm activities and remittances from migrant relatives. When food production falls short, they can use the money from these other sources to buy food.

This is a typical strategy for farm households in high population density areas in northern Ghana. In low population density areas, there are fewer opportunities for non-farm income,

but better conditions for above-subsistence agriculture.5

Table 7.1 lists the categories of income generating activities that were encountered during the survey and the distribution of these activities over the three vulnerability groups. Some categories are straightforward: sheanut and dawadawa processing, pito brewing, firewood selling, dry season gardening and fishing. In these categories, the type of work was the same for all households, but the intensity and the profitability varied between households. Petty trade, crafts, male casual labour, salary work and seasonal labour migration were more diverse categories. Table 7.2 further specifies what exactly these categories consisted of.

Table 7.1 Distribution of income generating activities over households in three vulnerability groups

Type of activity Vulnerable Middle Secure Total

Dry season gardening 4 4 6 13

Commercial fishing 2 2 1 5

Pito brewing 17 19 18 54

Firewood selling 5 3 6 14

Sheanut & dawadawa processing 5 1 2 8 Petty trade & food preparing 5 9 9 23 Commercial craftsmanship 3 3 3 9

Male casual labour 2 11 10 23

Salary work 1 0 6 7

Pension, rent & land sales 0 2 4 6 Seasonal labour migration 10 18 10 38

Total 54 72 74 201

Source: Livelihood Analysis Survey

4

Thirteen out of sixty households reported that they had been self-sufficient in food production every year of the past decade. Four reported that they had only bought grains one year, and five had bought grains in two out of ten years. Nineteen households had bought grains every year.

5

For a northern Ghanaian case study that compares household strategies for achieving food security in high and low population density areas, see Al-Hassan et al. (1997).

Table 7.2 Breakdown of six diverse categories of income generating activities

(Female) petty trade & food preparing (n=23)

Crafts (n=9; 2 male, 7 female) (Male) casual labour (n=23)

- bean cake preparing (5) - kenkey preparing (3) - rice and stew preparing (1) - milk retailing (5)

- pepper retailing (1) - dawadawa retailing (1) - groundnuts cracking and

retailing (2)

- kuli-kuli6 preparing and retailing (1)

- charcoal retailing (4)

- basket weaving (6) - rope making and door

weaving (1) - mat weaving (1) - hat weaving (1)

- shoe and leather repair (2) - tailoring (2) - masonry (2) - carpentry (3) - lottery staking (1) - brick making (2) - stone carving (1) - ferryman (1) - labourer in garden (1) - cattle herding (3) - tro-tro driver (1) - ploughing (2) - cloth weaving7 (2)

Salary work (n=7) Pension & rent (n=6) Seasonal labour migration (n=38)

- forest guard (1)

- Commission of Human Rights officer (1)

- floor sweeper in hospital (1) - bank employee (1)

- cook at Nandom S.S.S. (1) - bullock trainer for MoFA (1) - bar maid (1)

- pension (4) - land sales (1) - house renting (1)

- weeding in maize farms (23) - raising yam mounds (4) - maize and yam (4) - weeding rice & cocoa (1) - weeding tomatoes (1) - brick making (1) - construction (1) - not available (3) Source: Livelihood Analysis Survey