Effects of Urbanization on Access to Livelihood Resources: Experiences of Farm Families in the Ga West Municipality, Ghana

Abstract

Ghana has been lauded for being able to achieve the MDG target of “halving the proportion of those living in extreme poverty before the target date of 2015” (Ghana Statistical Service, 2013). But livelihood activities in the rural areas, which are dominated by farming, have become exposed to higher risks and vulnerabilities with new threats to access to resources. For example, with increasing urbanisation landowners are withdrawing land from farming for other uses leaving farmers stranded. The main objective of the study was to examine the effect of urbanization on access to livelihood resources by farmer households in Ga West Municipality and the adaptive strategies employed by affected families to formulate resilient livelihood. The study used a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection to elicit information from respondents. This involved two (2) community focus group discussions, eight (8) key informants’ interviews at community and Municipal Assembly level and 71 household interviews in a total of five (5) communities. Three of these communities were used as study communities and two were control communities in the Ga West Municipality. The quantitative data from household interviews were analysed using SPSS version 16.0 and Microsoft excel to generate descriptive statistics. The focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were analyzed thematically. The main finding was that urbanization and changes in population trends caused smallholder farm families to lose more than 70% of their farmlands to sand winners and estate developers. This subsequently led to reduced access to related farm resources, including, labour, technology and credit. Young people and farmers are drifting into off-farm activities. Women have resorted to selling cooked food and petty trading, which need minimal initial capital. On the positive side, parents are now sending their children to school to wean them off dependency on the land. It is recommended that central government together with local government institutions in peri-urban areas should not only acquire land for huge housing and other infrastructural development purposes, but in addition, create access to farmlands through deliberate government policy formulation aimed at conserving fertile farmlands for smallholder farmers. This would ensure that people whose livelihoods are land based have access to land for farming purposes at all times to protect them against changing demands for land for non-agricultural use.