In the heart of the Volta Region, you don’t just grow food — you negotiate for the right to. Land, here, is heritage. It is also politics, custom, and in some cases, power wielded by a few over the hopes of many.
I met Madam Efua, a widowed farmer, on the outskirts of Adaklu. She grows maize, cassava, and kontomire on a plot she leases from a local chief. Every three years, she has to renew her right to farm the same land her husband once tilled. There is no title deed, only trust. “When the chief dies, you start the begging process again,” she said, folding her arms across her faded kaba. “You pray his children won’t mind you staying.”
Efua’s story isn’t unique. Across Ghana and many parts of West Africa, land tenure systems are rooted in tradition, often unregulated and opaque. While communal ownership can foster shared stewardship, it also stifles long-term planning, especially for smallholder farmers — the very backbone of local food production.
Contrast this with large-scale commercial agribusinesses, often backed by capital and influence. They acquire vast stretches of land — sometimes the very lands villagers once cultivated — leaving communities disenfranchised. In one case, a rice farm employing 300 locals was shut down when the lease expired and the land was sold to a private developer promising a luxury resort. Food security lost to speculation.
Without secure access to land, farmers can’t invest in irrigation, composting, or crop rotation. Seasonal planning becomes a gamble. Access to bank loans becomes nearly impossible — no land title, no collateral. In turn, productivity suffers, and local markets shrink. It’s a slow erosion not just of food production, but of dignity.
Yet in places where land rights are clarified and protected, the effects are immediate and visible. In Hohoe, a women’s farming cooperative secured a 10-year lease on 20 acres through a partnership with a local NGO and traditional leaders. With the guarantee of time and space, they diversified their crops, improved yields, and began supplying a school feeding programme. Stability grew alongside the spinach.
What becomes clear is this: access to land shapes what appears on our plates. It shapes whether farmers plant for the market or just for survival. It shapes the difference between food abundance and food anxiety. And above all, it shapes whether rural people can see farming as a future — or only as a struggle to endure.
🌍 Takeaway:
To speak of food security without speaking of land access is to ignore the roots beneath the harvest.