Land use planning is one of the effective ways of achieving overall sustainable physical development especially, in urban areas. Various stakeholders in Ghana such as government agencies are therefore, responsible for the development and enforcement of national and local plans that specifies land areas for residential, industrial, transport and recreational facilities towards achieving sustainable development. Empirical literature within the Wa Municipality is not clear on weather enforcement and/or compliance pose as a challenge to sustainable urban development. The main objective of this study was therefore, to assess the physical development and land use planning guidelines in the Wa Municipality and analyse people compliance for sustainable land management. Both primary and secondary data were used in this study. A questionnaire was used to collect primary data from 173 households in the Wa Municipality. Besides, heads of three institutions responsible for enforcing planning guidelines were interviewed. The results maintained that physical development planning guidelines are there to guide urban development in the Wa Municipality, but enforcement and effective compliance has been weak. Also, demographic and economic variables of the respondents as well as the lack of institutional capacity are the factors responsible for low levels of compliance. The non-compliance with planning guidelines contributes to haphazard physical development. This implies that the existence of clear planning guidelines is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sustainable urban land management. It is therefore, recommended that appropriate intervention through effective education for the general public as well as resource allocation to the enforcement institutions. This will facilitate the achievement of sustainable urban land management in the Wa Municipality.

Globally, food crops production has been challenged by the impacts of climate change. Climate change scholars have argued that rural dwellers, particularly smallholder farmers who engage in food crops production, suffer the most due to their low capacity to adapt. A growing body of knowledge also suggests that local practices serve as safeguards, that enable smallholder farmers to lessen their vulnerability in food crops production. However, limited scholarly insight has been advanced about sustainable food production via the use of local practices. Through the mixed research approach, the study contributes to local practices and climate adaptation debates by examining the various local practices of smallholder farmers, the challenges they encounter with the use of such practices and the possibility for sustainable food crops production in the future in Ghana. The findings suggest that smallholders encounter multiple drawbacks in attempt to utilize local practices to adapt food crops production to climate change including the advent of modern farming inputs/practices. Even when multiple local practices (the planting of multiple crops’ varieties, switching between crops and livestock rearing, reducing cultivatable land size) are utilized, only the increment in farm size, the use of income/remittances of rural–urban migrants to support food crops production, and early cultivation offered some possibilities of sustaining improvement in food crops production for the future. Therefore, the study concluded that local practices are not necessarily panaceas for sustaining food crops production under climate change. The study recommended that further studies pay attention to the sustainability of local practices under climate change.

Globally, food crops production has been challenged by the impacts of climate change. Climate change scholars have argued that rural dwellers, particularly smallholder farmers who engage in food crops production, suffer the most due to their low capacity to adapt. A growing body of knowledge also suggests that local practices serve as safeguards, that enable smallholder farmers to lessen their vulnerability in food crops productions. However, limited scholarly insight has been advanced about sustainable food production via the use of local practices. Through the mixed research approach, our study contributes to local practices and climate adaptation debates by examining the various local practices of smallholder farmers, the challenges they encounter with the use of such practices and the possibility for sustainable food crops production in the future. Our findings suggest that smallholders encounter multiple drawbacks in attempts to utilize local practices to adapt food crops production to climate change including the advent of modern farming inputs/practices. Even when multiple local practices (the planting of crops varieties, switching between crops and livestock rearing, reducing cultivatable land size) are utilized, only the increment in farm size, the use of income/remittances of rural-urban migrants to support food crops production, and early cultivation offered some possibilities of sustaining improvement in food crops production for the future. Therefore, we conclude that local practices are not necessarily panaceas for sustaining food crops production under climate change. We recommend further studies to pay attention to the sustainability of local practices under climate change.