Implications of Customary Land Rights Inequalities for Food Security: A Study of Smallholder Farmers in Northwest Ghana

Abstract

Inequalities in land rights exist globally, both in formal and customary settings. This is because land rights are either strong or weak, and held by various categories of people. The weaker variants of the inequalities tend to stifle tenure security, reduce land use, and threaten the food security of those dependent on the land for survival. This paper investigated the implications of customary land rights inequalities and varying tenure insecurity for food security among smallholder farmers in northwest Ghana. It identified the nature of rights inequalities, the number of rights and in whose possession. The research also assessed the kinds and nature of land rights as well as how such rights affect people’s farm sizes and subsequently farming output for ultimate food security. The data collection techniques were focus group discussions and interviews of key informants and key players in key organisations. Results revealed the existence of food insecurity among smallholder farmers (settlers/migrants) who have both fewer and weaker land rights as compared to landowners who possess numerous and stronger rights in the study area. Results also showed that weak and unequally skewed land rights lead to uncertain tenure durations and reduced farm sizes, which affects farmed area, farm output, food availability, accessibility and food security. Furthermore, farmers expressed the need to apply coping strategies to overcome the impact of unequal land rights. This research recommends further studies to design intervention strategies to better understand land rights inequalities and their implications. The outcome is expected to contribute to informing interventions to narrow these inequalities and reduce the implications that can later enhance food security.

What Drives Landowners to Resist Selling Their Land? Insights from Ethical Capitalism and Landowners’ Perceptions

“…Based on the land grabbing literature, authors distinguished a set of eight narratives, most often interrelated and overlapping, that pose ethical considerations linked to land transactions. These are "Agricultural land loss to urban sprawl-land grabbing" narrative [56,57]; "Environment depletion-land grabbing" narrative [58][59][60]; "Weak solidarity among farmers" narrative [61,62]; "Questioning of business ethics-land grabbing" narrative [35]; "Food insecurity-land grabbing" narrative [9,63,64]; "Lack of collaborative governance-land grabbing" narrative [14,65,66]; "Future overall gravity-land grabbing narrative" [14,[67][68][69]; and "Xenophobia-land grabbing" narrative [70,71].…”

The Impact of The Development of Investment and Construction on The Land Reform Years in Indonesia

“…On the other hand, it has been recognized that smallholder agriculture has contributed at least 60% of the food needed in the world. Then, to overcome this problem is to improve security or the relationship is the law governing land ownership rights to small farmers (Nara, 2020).…”

Customary land rights and tenure security of subsistence farmers for food security in northern Ghana

“…In other words, it refers to the capacity to provide sufficient food through production, acquisition and distribution on sustainable basis. This understanding of food security implies that eradicating hunger requires increases in the availability of and accessibility to sufficiently nutritious food from one harvest to another (Nara et al, 2020a). The extent to which subsistence/smallholder farmers are able to increase their food security depends in large part on the opportunities they have to increase their access to assets such as land (Nara, Lengoiboni, & Zevenbergen, 2020b;Ruerd & Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2011).…”

“…Smallholder farmers throughout the world continue to experience displacement from their lands, struggle to remain viable and often experience hunger (Carte et al, 2019). According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), factors that enable progress towards improved food security and nutrition goals are agricultural productivity growth, functioning markets, and effective social protection possibly through an effective form of legislation (Nara et al, 2020b(Nara et al, , 2020a. This makes land, its rights, associated inequalities, and varying tenure security important in this research.…”

“…The supply of food to smallholder households in order to meet all dimensions of their food security needs is mainly through own farming. In addition, they purchase from the market what they do not produce from sale of some of their own farm produce (Nara et al, 2020a).…”