RESEARCH NEEDS FOR SUSTAINABLE COCOA PRODUCTION IN GHANA

Lands in Ghana can roughly be divided in two types: private lands and public lands. Public lands include the national parks and forest reserves and the user rights are vested in the government. Private lands are mostly “stool lands”, owned and managed by the traditional authorities. Some of the stool lands are family owned and can be passed down through generations (R.A. Asare, 2013). For indigenous farmers, inheritance is the most common way to acquire land, though the structures vary, ranging from strict matrilineal to complex agreements where patrilineal and matrilineal systems are combined (Knudsen & Fold, 2011). In many occasions the stool lands can be leased out to others, often through oral agreements. The farmers that work on the land but do not own it, are usually referred to as ‘caretakers’ and are often migrant farmers. (See R.A. Asare, 2013 for a more detailed description of the tenure arrangements in Ghana).

With the historical shift in cocoa cultivation from Eastern to Western Region in Ghana, many farmers migrated to establish cocoa farms, mostly by clearing natural forest. Some migrants were farmers from previous cocoa growing regions, others came from the Northern regions. Some migrant labourers established short term contracts to work on the farm as hired-labour. Others were able to acquire permanent land-use rights from indigenous groups, making them landowners. Finally, many migrant farmers made agreements with local landowners for land-share contracts, which in some occasions led to partial ownership after cocoa farm establishment (Knudsen & Fold, 2011).

The land-share contract exists in many different varieties as the conditions depend on the negotiations between the two parties entering the contract. However, a rough division can be made into two types; the abusa contract and the abunu contract. Within the abusa contract, which can last for many seasons, the caretaker works the cocoa farm but the decisions on harvest and sale of cocoa remain with the landowner. The caretaker generally receives a third of the revenues, with the rest going to the landowner. In the abunu contract, the caretaker establishes and works on the cocoa farm in the first years without any payment except for the right to grow food on the land. When the trees are mature and start bearing fruits, the caretaker and the landowner divide the revenues. When the farm is fully established, in many occasions the land-use right of half of the land goes to the caretaker. These contracts are often not clearly defined which leads to uncertainty but also allows some flexibility for both parties as the farm establishment progresses (Knudsen & Fold, 2011).

The incorporation of this traditional system into the common law system has been mentioned as an important factor in the relatively limited number of conflicts in the shift of cocoa to different regions over time. However, it is also thought that in the future the system, with insecure and unclear land tenure arrangements, could lead to conflicts between stools, generations and indigenous and migrant farmers. Often there are no written agreements making conflict settlement difficult  (Knudsen & Fold, 2011).

Land tenure is important for sustainable land use since land insecurity requires constant cultivation of the land to protect it from claims by others, thus reducing the amount of fallow land (Otsuka, Quisumbing, Payongayong, & Aidoo, 2003). Moreover, uncertainty and unclarity in land rights serve as a disincentive to investment in the land, since access to the future returns is not guaranteed (Goldstein & Udry, 2008). Therefore, this insecurity leads to a focus on short term yields to ensure a high income while there is still access to the land. Finally, even if land tenure arrangements are relatively clear when it comes to cocoa production, it is likely that there will be an increase in uncertainty when the cultivation of the land changes since this was not taken into the original agreements (Nyame, Okai, Adeleke, & Fischer, 2012). This could mean that a shift from low-shade to shaded cocoa cultivation affects the tenure arrangements (Anon., personal communication).

As can be extracted from the above, there is a lot of variation in land acquisition and tenure agreements. Differences exist between indigenous and migrant farmers, communities and even between individual cases. Therefore it is important to make an assessment of these dynamics at the project site. Especially because land ownership and decision-making power are important to take into account in the project design phase to target the right people with the right message. The message that is conveyed to the farmers should depend on their tenure status. For example, caretakers are less likely to consider sustainability issues, since they have little guarantee that they will benefit from the interventions (Anon., personal communication). It is often said that no-shade cocoa production have a higher initial yield though it will decline much faster than in shaded systems, which might have slightly lower but more sustainable yields. Though this is used as an argument for adoption of shaded practices, for caretakers this might only enforce the need to reduce shade on the farm. Since caretakers have short term access to cocoa yields and little guarantee of access on the long term, the focus is on maximizing short term returns (Anon., personal communication). It is also important to understand who can make decisions about investments, shade tree planting and potential reduction of yield and the required compensation (Anon., personal communication).