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Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana

The study examines the contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic cattle herders in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District. Current studies on the farmer-herder conflict in Ghana have emphasised the conflict between indigenous farmers and nomadic herd...

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Main Author: Otu, Bernard Okoampah
Other Authors: Chitonge, Horman
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: African Studies 2022
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access_status_str Open Access
author Otu, Bernard Okoampah
author2 Chitonge, Horman
author_browse Chitonge, Horman
Otu, Bernard Okoampah
author_facet Chitonge, Horman
Otu, Bernard Okoampah
author_sort Otu, Bernard Okoampah
collection Thesis
description The study examines the contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic cattle herders in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District. Current studies on the farmer-herder conflict in Ghana have emphasised the conflict between indigenous farmers and nomadic herders. This study has contributed to existing knowledge by highlighting the conflict between two migrant groups. As migrants, both settler farmers and nomadic herders are renting land and, in the process, come into conflict. The tension in the area is that both migrant groups have no ownership of land, which exposes their vulnerability to the landowners in the sense that they have no firm land rights. The study's main objective is to examine the root causes of the conflict between crop farmers and nomadic herders in the case study area of the Afram Plains. The environmental scarcity and political ecology theories were utilised to analyse the conflict in the study area. The study adopted the qualitative approach with the purposive and snowball sampling methods used to select participants for the research. The study's findings reveal that increasing land scarcity due to population growth, climate-induced migration, and large-scale land acquisition is a major cause of the land conflict. The study further reveals that, aside from the core issues leading to land scarcity, what instantly ignites conflict between farmers and herders includes crop destruction, burning of grasses, and alleged vices perpetrated by the herders. The findings of the study also reveal that the mitigation measures put in place to address the conflict have been ineffective because of corruption, poor land governance, and greedy chiefs. The study concludes that the farmer-herder conflict is complex and needs to be examined from diverse perspectives to appreciate the nuances of the conflict.
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id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/36709
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:51:12.025Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2022
publishDateRange 2022
publishDateSort 2022
publisher African Studies
publisherStr African Studies
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/36709 Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana Otu, Bernard Okoampah Chitonge, Horman land access Kwahu Afram Plains South District smallholder settler farmers Ghana The study examines the contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic cattle herders in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District. Current studies on the farmer-herder conflict in Ghana have emphasised the conflict between indigenous farmers and nomadic herders. This study has contributed to existing knowledge by highlighting the conflict between two migrant groups. As migrants, both settler farmers and nomadic herders are renting land and, in the process, come into conflict. The tension in the area is that both migrant groups have no ownership of land, which exposes their vulnerability to the landowners in the sense that they have no firm land rights. The study's main objective is to examine the root causes of the conflict between crop farmers and nomadic herders in the case study area of the Afram Plains. The environmental scarcity and political ecology theories were utilised to analyse the conflict in the study area. The study adopted the qualitative approach with the purposive and snowball sampling methods used to select participants for the research. The study's findings reveal that increasing land scarcity due to population growth, climate-induced migration, and large-scale land acquisition is a major cause of the land conflict. The study further reveals that, aside from the core issues leading to land scarcity, what instantly ignites conflict between farmers and herders includes crop destruction, burning of grasses, and alleged vices perpetrated by the herders. The findings of the study also reveal that the mitigation measures put in place to address the conflict have been ineffective because of corruption, poor land governance, and greedy chiefs. The study concludes that the farmer-herder conflict is complex and needs to be examined from diverse perspectives to appreciate the nuances of the conflict. 2022-08-21T23:05:30Z 2022-08-21T23:05:30Z 2022 2022-08-21T22:29:31Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/36709 eng application/pdf African Studies Faculty of Humanities
spellingShingle land access
Kwahu Afram Plains South District
smallholder settler farmers
Ghana
Otu, Bernard Okoampah
Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana
title_full Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana
title_fullStr Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana
title_full_unstemmed Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana
title_short Contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic Fulani cattle herdsmen in the Kwahu Afram Plains South District, Ghana
title_sort contestations and conflicts over land access between smallholder settler farmers and nomadic fulani cattle herdsmen in the kwahu afram plains south district ghana
topic land access
Kwahu Afram Plains South District
smallholder settler farmers
Ghana
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/36709
work_keys_str_mv AT otubernardokoampah contestationsandconflictsoverlandaccessbetweensmallholdersettlerfarmersandnomadicfulanicattleherdsmeninthekwahuaframplainssouthdistrictghana