Biofuels And The Hazards Of Land Grabbing: Tenure (In)Security And Indigenous Farmers’ Investment Decisions In Ghana

The past decade has witnessed a renewed interest in transnational land deals in the developing land-abundant countries of Sub Sahara Africa (SSA), Asia and Latin America following the convergence of the global financial, food and energy crises in the mid 2000s. In much of SSA, these deals occur on customary (communal) lands which are managed by traditional chiefs in trust for the entire local community and hence occupied by local farmers. Traditional authorities have, for unexplained reasons, become much interested in these deals; alienating large tracts of customary lands to foreign investors for biofuel and food crop plantations. In this paper, we examine the effects of the current mode of communal land acquisition for Jatropha cultivation in Ghana on the security of indigenous farmers’ land rights and their decisions to invest in their farms. Empirical evidence is based on primary data collected from field surveys conducted in two districts in Ghana; Yeji and Ejura in the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions respectively. We show that the increasing alienation of communal lands to biofuel investors without fair and adequate compensation to the indigenous land holders has resulted in higher levels of uncertainty and land tenure insecurity among farmers in affected communities. Consequently, such farmers have become apathetic to farming, cultivate smaller farm sizes and thereby show low agricultural investments. These findings provide a new perspective for considering the nexus between increasing biofuel cultivation and food security in developing countries.