Until recently, pastoralists and sedentary farmers co-existed and utilised land resources in a mutually beneficial manner. However, increasing population pressure and changing inheritance and family systems combined to threaten the co-utilisation of land resources by pastoralists and farmers. These developments, taken alone, were not sufficient to offset the balance. Recently, however, central governmental policy on land reforms gives precedence to commercialised agricultural production and intensification over pastoral and peasant practices. This centralised policy goal is offsetting the natural balance of resource access by elevating land access to a level of competitive market forces and aggravating contestations to pastures for pastoralists.
Firstly, rapid population growth, due to natural growth rate and migration reduces the land area available to all. The population of the NSM grows at an annual rate of 2.3 percent and within a relatively short period of 50 years, the population grew from 22, 923 in 1960 to 100,929 in 2010 (Nkoranza South Municipal Assembly, 2010). The rapidly growing population results in land fragmentation and contestations among lineage members for the scarce family resources given that land is a scarce and relatively fixed resource which cannot be reproduced. Rapid population growth in the Nkoranza area has led to growing agricultural activities on formerly fallow lands thereby limiting access to pasture by pastoralists. Similar findings were made by Breusers et al. (1998) and Tonah (2006) to the effect that water,
pasture and farmland scarcity are accentuated in many parts of the world by increasing
human population. McCabe et al. (1992) also observe that growing human population in the
Ngorongoro area of Tanzania is resulting in loss of grazing lands by Maasai pastoralists. The adverse effects of population growth on land rights and pastoral access to pastures is worsened by the changing socio-cultural practices (family and inheritance practices) that governed customary land tenure relations. The Queen-mother (Omanhemaa)
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of Nkoranza indicated that the inheritance system has changed from Wofa-adee (matrilineal
inheritance) to Agya-adee (patrilineal inheritance); and families are increasingly becoming
nucleated. She contended that these changes are the outcome of the exposure of the majority of the people to western education. Her claims are supported in the 2010-2013 medium term development plan of the NSM, which indicates that family and inheritance systems in the NSM have undergone significant changes due to exposure of the people to western education, Christianity and growing economic pressures (Nkoranza South Municipal Assembly, 2010). The changing inheritance and family systems are leading to redefinitions of land access and use rights, enabling parents to “will” their properties directly to their children as opposed to their nephews as was customarily the case. These are leading to growing dominance of smaller families and individualised interests over the collective good and it is a change which has a bearing on land access and use rights for indigenes and pastoralists alike as they reconstruct long held communal practices. Yankson et al., (2009) in a study on land
vulnerabilities in the Kete Krachi area of Ghana observed that socio-cultural systems are
changing due largely to the growing influence of Christianity and Islam and in the process leading to changes in land access and use rights for diverse land actors.
Fundamental to the contestations over land/pastures access by pastoralists, beyond the socio-cultural issues, is land reforms and the changes to land and natural resource governance resulting therefrom. Records available at the Nkoranza Customary Lands Secretariat (CLS) indicate that between 2008 and 2013 chiefs have sold in excess of 600 building plots and about 150 large scale agricultural plots to individuals and corporate interests. Again, the Ghana Land Bank Directory indicates that there is about 54,231.8 ha of banked land in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana ready to be leased to investors for the cultivation of teak, cashew, oil palm and food crops. The directory further indicates that most of these lands are stool lands and private lands located in the Nkoranza and Kintampo districts; both of which
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are within the Nkoranza Customary land area. The growing exposure of communal land resources to metropolitan capital investments through the agency model of land governance introduced through land reforms leads to restrictions to the access of pastures by pastoralists. Absentee land owners erect sign posts to restrict entry to fallow lands that they have duly acquired. Smith & Wishnie (2000) and Behnke (2008) observed that it is almost always impossible under land reforms for the interests of pastoralists built around flexible institutions and ad hoc organisations of resource access to compete against those of governments and
commercial interests.
Closely related to, and resulting from land reforms is the gradual disappearance of the commons. As initially argued, the commons in Nkoranza derive from the local conception of land which is limited only to the surface soil. Land reforms, however, result in the alienation of hitherto communal resources to private and corporate interests. The rising alienation of land by chiefs take place on fallow land resources, which served as grazing grounds for pastoralists and provided multiple productive and environmental services in support of pastoral livelihoods. The work of Tsikata & Yaro (2011) on land market liberalisation in Ghana as well as that of Schoneveld & German (2013) on the new commercial pressures on land in Ghana support these observations, when they indicate that the large scale acquisition of “productive and virgin” common property areas in many communities across Ghana worsens the vulnerability of the poor.
Again, commercialisation of agriculture is a major impediment to pasture access. It is a development equally related to and emanating directly from the kind of land reforms that has been embarked upon in the Nkoranza area. The Nkoranza area has in recent years seen massive growth in commercial agriculture due to the security associated with land acquisition. For instance, KIMMINIC, a Canadian bio-fuel company has acquired 13,000 ha of land in the Bredi area of Nkoranza for the cultivation of Jatropha under a 45 years lease term, which
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gives 25 percent of profits to the local chief. OLAM Ghana, a Singaporean produce buying company, supports about 1,200 commercial cashew growers in 20 communities in Nkoranza whose farm sizes average 2.5ha, and totalling 3,000 ha. There are also some estimated 21,660 ha, 10,500 ha, 15,548 ha and 3,535 ha of land under commercial cultivation of maize, cassava, yam and tomatoes, respectively (Municipal Agricultural Development Unit, 2013). These commercial agricultural activities largely take place on leased, rented and or out-rightly bought lands and these developments deprive pastoralists’ access to pastures. Similar developments are taking place in Tanzania as McCabe et al. (1992) and Goldman (2011)
established that grazing lands by Maasai pastoralists in the Ngorongoro area and Manyara Ranch have been lost due largely to privatisation of lands for commercial farms and ranches and the expansion of tourist game parks.
1.7 Conclusion
The rate at which land resources are being privatised coupled with commercialisation of agricultural practices renders the continuous practice of pastoralism difficult to justify. On the other hand, the overwhelming importance of pastoralism requires that measures are put in place to sustain the practice. Based on the governing arrangements for pastoralism in the NSM, this study concludes that land reforms need to be so constructed in such a way that they take into consideration the historical evolution of communities, new and emerging pressures for land use conversion as well as the communal systems that govern and mediate land access, use and management. This study has shown that the reformed land tenure system, which creates opportunities for large scale land acquisitions, and individualised systems of land ownership, is the catalyst speeding up all the other related processes and creating difficulties for negotiated land access, as was customarily the case. Therefore, state policies over land and natural resources should seek to sustain communal practices, land use dynamics and cultures by supporting land tenure stabilisation and increasing voice and
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accountability over land use decision making (Sayre et al., 2013). Pastoralists and cattle owners also need to come together to form associations which can be used as a means for
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Chapter 7