Sahapalegu is found in the far Northern part of Tamale, towards the Tamale-Savelugu road. This area has a reservoir that was constructed to provide the communities surrounding it with water for domestic use. Lands around this reservoir were used in the rainy season to plant maize and rice, and was left to fallow in the dry season. Fulani herding cattle for indigenes from surrounding communities like Zagyuri and Sughashie live close to this reservoir, far from the community dwellings. They graze cattle under their care around this reservoir during the dry season. During one of my many interviews with Saleman, a farmer in Gumbihini, he told me that he got to hear about the availability of land and water for dry season vegetable farming in Sahapalegu area from an undergraduate student whom his father met at the Sasakawa mosque in Tamale.
This student was enrolled at the Tamale Polytechnique but was sleeping in the mosque because he lacked the money to pay for accommodation. After explaining his problems to Saleman’s father, he was given accommodation in Gumbihini to live with Saleman. When this student got to Gunbihini, which is one of the biggest vegetable sites in Tamale, according to Danso et al. (2014) and (Nchanjiet al., 2017), he became curious about the dry season vege- table cultivation and how much profit was involved in this agricultural endeavour.
During one of their several discussions, Saleman informed the student that dry season vegetable cultivation is a profitable activity in the dry season, a time of the year when many people lack employment, as explained in chapter 3. The student mentioned that there was a reservoir in his village surrounded by land used only in the rainy season for rice and maize cultivation. He stated that no one grew vegetables on these lands during the dry season. Sale- man then decided with one of his colleagues to approach the community for land through this student. He first paid a visit to this village with the student, who called together his father and other elders, through whom Saleman introduced the idea of dry season vegetable cultivation and its benefits to the family and community. When the elders were convinced, they then took Saleman and his colleague to the chief of the community for him to explain his project.
At the chief’s palace, Saleman explained his project to the chief after presenting a kola nut to the chief as custom demands. He stated the importance of dry season vegetable prac- tice and his willingness to educate and train farmers interested in this activity. He came along with a water pump which he stated would ease irrigation of vegetables and reduce the labour used on the farm. He insisted that this activity would be communal, with anyone interested participating and sharing in all the work and profits. He also stated that he would contact mar- ket women in Tamale to come and buy the vegetables from the farm gate, a practice which takes place in Gumbihini and many other vegetable sites. The chief agreed and in the first year of farming Saleman was allocated less than an acre, in which he started by showing the local farmers how to cultivate the local Hibiscus sabdariffa and later other vegetables such as
Corchorus olitorius, Brassica oleracea, and Lactuca sativa. Later on, more lands were given
for vegetable farming as shown in Figure 6.7, until everyone had a plot of land on which to farm whichever vegetable he was interested in.
Figure 6.7: Vegetable site in Sahapalegu Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2015
Here, the access point to land was through religion– the meeting in the Mosque. This religious tie was solidified by a common tradition which facilitated the meetings with the elders and subsequently the chief, who authorised access to land for dry season vegetable farming. In this section, we see the importance of religion and ethnicity as tools used by farmers to access communal land in peri-urban areas where the notions of tradition still play a major role, since development and urbanisation have not overtaken these areas. Saleman’s specialised
knowledge of dry season vegetable farming, its practice, market and capital requirements also paved the way for his access to resources in this area for farming. The knowledge he had placed him in the right position to access the resources he needed to continue vegetable farming. I refer to such emerging farmers from the city as supervisory or expert farmers.
6.2.4 Land access through non-governmental organisations
During the baseline survey, I took part in a focus group discussion with women who farmed at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) vegetable site. I was surprised that the farmers on this site were all women, as most farmers on the other sites I had visited were men. During the focus group discussion, one of the participants mentioned that her husband had been farming on this site for about two years during the rainy season. He was approached by the land owners, the NGO ActionAid, who had privately acquired a lease on this land.
ActionAid met our participant’s husband farming on their land informally, a practice which is not unusual on undeveloped private and government lands in Tamale. They asked him if he could put them in touch with women who were interested in dry season vegetable farming. ActionAid’s approach to the farmer was linked to their programme to involve women in agriculture. This programme was informed by recent calls from international organisations like the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) for NGOs to consider gender equity in re- source access through a gender-sensitive agricultural system. The farmer agreed to Action- Aid’s request and later brought 12 women including his wife whom he said showed interest in this farming practice.
There is no dugout or reservoir on this site; the only water source is a standpipe which was installed by the Urban Agriculture Network (Urbanet), which works together with Action- Aid. Urbanet is a non-governmental organization that aims to help build the capacities of small- holder farmers, especially women, to combat food insecurity in situations of landlessness and climate change. Urbanet gets most of its funding from ActionAid Ghana to carry out its projects and activities. For the first three months, Urbanet paid the water bills at this site and permitted the female farmers to grow and sell any vegetable of their choice so they could gather enough money to start paying the next water bills. Only indigenous vegetables are produced at this site - Hibiscus sabdariffa, Corchorus olitorius, Amaranthus spp, and Vigna unguiculata.
Here, I have shown the importance of interpersonal relationships at the community level, where access to land depends on one’s interactions and connections within the com- munity. This is especially relevant in a society like this one, where information deemed im- portant by those in power is passed and acted upon mostly by males due to the patriarchal nature of the society. That is why a man is asked to search for women interested in vegetable farming, and women are not picked out from the vegetable growers’ union, for example, and asked to recommend other interested colleagues. I would like to stress here that investments
in social relations, as we saw in the preceding examples, are central to virtually all other ele- ments of access, as purported by Berry (1989, 1993). Figure 6.8 features female farmers farming on irrigation site, which is a new trend which I will further explain in this chapter and Chapter 7.
Figure 6.8: Female farmers at Golinga irrigation site Source: Author’s field work, 2015
International Non-Governmental Organisations like the United States Agency for Inter- national Development (USAID) with other national non-governmental organisations have cre- ated mechanisms through which women get access to lands directly for dry season vegetable farming. This has been done through discussions with irrigation chairmen and officers, who have intended educated and sensitised male farmers on these irrigation sites on the benefits of asking their wives join them. At the Golinga irrigation site, men have refused to have their women farm on the same plots of land with them but have agreed that their women be given plots of land at the edge of the irrigation site. The plots of land at the edge of the irrigation site are farmed exclusively by women even though insufficient. This practice also takes place at the Bontanga irrigation site in a slightly different manner. Women are permitted to only weed or harvest from their husbands’ farms. The reason given to men to allow their wives, sisters and/or mother-in-laws to have a separate plot of land to farm is to encourage agronomic ben- efits from organisations that encourage gender sensitive agricultural practices.
Focus group discussion with women at the Golinga irrigation shows that women were given separate plots of land to farm as a group, as seen from the quote below:
One day, the chairman organised a meeting with us the women in the community and told us that some visitors came to talk to them that they want the women also to be added to those men who are doing farming. Male farmers have an association and the organisation (visitors) also want to see women's organisation, so that was the reason why they called us to introduced the farming to us so we can also join them on the farm… for about six to seven years now, we started errh farming ourselves.
Some of the benefits of letting women have their own separate plots of land to farm will include external organisations investing more on these irrigation sites through: advancing the technical agronomic knowledge of the farmers and providing them with more improved seeds and inputs, especially during field day activities or demonstration days. These trials will then take place on the plots of expert farmers chosen by the irrigation officers or chairmen. The interactions between farmers and Non-Governmental Organisations comprise what I have termed exchange-oriented relationships. Farmers and non-governmental organisations ex- change different services, and their interests are sometimes met during these exchanges me- diated by the irrigation authorities.
Here we see how international discourses promoted by certain agricultural bodies at the global level have led to changes in the agricultural policies and programmes of government agencies and non-governmental organisations, with effects on local agricultural practice and resource access rules. Through this discourse, international organisations have gained legiti- macy in the international agricultural development circle as pro-poor agents promoting land access for vulnerable and marginalised people in the community. The State and Non-Govern- mental Organisations also benefit from this discourse by positioning themselves as promoters of gender-sensitive agricultural practices with the need for funding. The shifts in agricultural policy and programmes in support of gender sensitive farming on irrigation sites have led to new resource norms for women, as they now have direct access to private plots, a situation which conflicts with former norms about women’s role in customary land usage.