Land deals, dispossession, and the threat to peasant livelihood in northern ghana

Abstract

The chapter discusses how the security of communal lands tenureship and the livelihood choices that such land entitlements confer on peasants in northern Ghana are being undermined by new forms of land deals. This is done against a background unlike the past. Northern Ghana is witnessing an influx of transnational organizations that are interested in establishing jatropha plantations as biofuel feedstock. The implications of direct land deals between traditional leaders and transnational corporations, which invariably involve large tracts of land and the livelihoods of the peasantry, is a matter of interest in this work. The vulnerability of traditional leaders caused by their weak institutional capacity and poverty push them to enter into agreements that they do not understand. The chapter examines both sides of the debate pertaining to the outcomes of the land transactions on livelihoods in light of the poverty in northern Ghana. © 2015, IGI Global. All rights reserved.