The Adaptability of African Communal Land Tenure to Economic Opportunity: The Example of Land Acquisition for Oil Palm Farming in Ghana

International African Institute

The Adaptability of African Communal Land Tenure to Economic Opportunity: The Exampleof Land Acquisition for Oil Palm Farming in GhanaAuthor(s): Edwin A. GyasiSource: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 64, No. 3 (1994), pp. 391-405Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1160788 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 09:14

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cambridge University Press and International African Institute are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 09:14:25 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iai

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1160788?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Africa 64 (3), 1994

THE ADAPTABILITY OF AFRICAN COMMUNAL LAND TENURE TO ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY:

THE EXAMPLE OF LAND ACQUISITION FOR OIL PALM FARMING IN GHANA

Edwin A. Gyasi

The fundamental importance of land to society, especially agrarian ones such as Ghana, cannot be gainsaid. From a socio-economic standpoint, the most crucial aspects of land are its extent and quality, and how readily people may have access to or acquire it for farming and other economic activities. The accessibility aspect is of special interest because 'In every country the system by which rights over land are held shapes agricultural production' (Dunning, 1970: 272).

THE COMMUNAL SYSTEM

Communal land ownership is the expression used here to describe the system whereby land is collectively owned by an extended family, clan or community of ancestrally related people, with the control or administration vested in the leader or his appointee, who may give out portions of the land to the community or non-community members to be used on an individual basis, on a more or less nucleated family basis, on a co-operative basis or through some other such recognised arrangement, for variable lengths of time.

Traditionally, in Ghana as in most other parts of tropical Africa, land is, generally, owned communally by people having common descent or owing allegiance to a symbol of collective authority, e.g. the 'stool' among the Akan of southern Ghana (Bentsi-Enchill, 1964; Ollenu, 1962; Parsons, 1971; Pogucki, 1962). Therefore the community, group or family constitutes the basic medium of access to land. The individual members are supposed to enjoy free inheritable usufructure rights over the communal land on the basis of kinship, i.e. membership of the community, without, in principle, prejudice to the communal ownership. Strangers or non-members may have access to the communal land through the transfer of rights of use by the land-owning community, usually through the leader, chief or occupant of the stool. Another, increasingly powerful, medium of access to land is the modern state, represented by the government, which may acquire land compulsorily from the original owners, through legislation, for the government's own use, or for use by others, in so far as the acquisition is deemed to be in the public interest.

A school of thought sees the traditional communal land tenure system as nebulous, inherently conservative, incapable of adapting fast enough to change and, therefore, a drag on development (Anyane, 1962; Bauer and Yamey, 1957; Lewis, 1955; Migot-Adholla et al., 1990). King, for example, observes:

In order to protect the group members' right to ... subsistence livelihood from group land, it is usually necessary to constrain the voluntary or involuntary alienation of land to stranger groups. In doing so, opportunities of entrepreneurial,



LAND FOR OIL PALMS IN GHANA

innovative, and investment-oriented agricultural enterprise ... are inhibited'. [1973: 36]

Other constraints on development have been associated with lack of clarity about the land allocating authorities and about boundaries; disputes; tres- passing; inequitable tenancies; capitalist exploitation; lack of security for peasants, especially tenants as well as stranger or alien farmers; inability to use the communally owned land as collateral for a bank loan; and the customary system of inheritance, which, in certain cases, excludes females, and entails the subdivision of land among succeeding generations with consequential fragmentation of holdings (Arhin, 1985; L. Johnson, 1962; Migot-Adholla et al., 1990; Ninsin, 1989).

Yet the communal system in Ghana did not prevent the extensive acquisition of land, especially by strangers (i.e. immigrants who do not belong to any of the land-holding groups in a locality), for the rapid development of cocoa farming especially from the 1890s to about 1950 (Hill, 1963; M. Johnson, 1964), but also from about 1950 onwards (Arhin, 1985). Nor did it prevent the phenomenal post-1970 oil palm farming expansion, involving an over fivefold increase in oil palm hectarage in twenty years (Table 1). This would seem to underscore the view that, basically, the traditional system is a dynamic one, capable of adapting, in good times, to favourable new economic opportunities.

The article examines land acquisition by small peasant farmers for oil palm farming in Ghana, with the aim of obtaining a better understanding of how the traditional communal system of land ownership adapts to a new economic opportunity. We focus on the oil palm, Elaeis guineensis, because this crop, which between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was Ghana's leading foreign exchange earner through palm oil and kernel exports, has, in response to increased demand and various other incentives, re-emerged as a major land occupier and agro-industrial crop, rivalling cocoa in commercial importance since about 1970 (Gyasi, 1992). The growth of the oil palm industry both in the past and in the present, I contend, is a manifesta- tion of the ability of the communal system to respond to favourable economic conditions, and that defects in the system are best tackled in a gradual manner through efficient administration of the recently introduced land title registration law (P.N.D.C., 1986), rather than by radical reform measures such as land nationalisation.

ACQUISITIONS IN THE COLONIAL ERA

Historically, in Ghana, the oil palm industry has, in the main, been in the hands of small-scale peasant operators who at present grow nearly 70 per cent of the national palm hectarage. It appears that in earlier times the industry did not involve land acquisition per se, as the palm occurred largely wild or in a semi-wild state on communally owned stool and family lands. As such, it was regarded as a communal economic resource, to be enjoyed freely by all members of the community. Generally, the members were entitled to harvest the palm fruit freely, for home consumption at least. However, the custodian of the land, i.e. the chief (as occupant of the stool) or the head of the land-owning family, might grant anyone (including strangers) a

392



!iI I -8? 30 20? 1-

" 0 .\ ; INSET MAP OF

/.

:\s /: \ I GHANA

f ......... ... ..... .. .. . ( ,. '( S.?kondi

Kum, ,i. o. :. : : . . . , \ ...j .Kuma

-:: ..::::::::. :::::: :::: . . .. _ :::_ :: : / / * - .|p 1", O .

r/^^y'', "7'' \* 'v1*

'*(* *'

*wrrtft^tin^^^ TTTold 0"p<l

-7- /ccr. C * *\, ra

-5 ' . ~................0. ....? I Sekondi rsavnn

....... ? * . . K..

::::::::::::FIG. 1 Direction of Krobo and Akuapem migrant farmers' movement and the old oil palm belt in Ghana. (Sources: Shepherd, 1936; Anyne, ::::::::::::

:1961; Dickson and Benneh, 1988)

..... - - . . - -

-. 1 s? i 'r4?)K M3 0,

rSekondi 50 MIs. •-- Forest r 3- _

FIG. 1 Direction of Krobo and Akuapem movement and the old oil palm belt in Ghana. (Sources: Shepherd, 1936;/l nyane, 1961; Dickson and Benneh , 1988)

jai O 80 ~~~ m r. C o o bto l thiolc8t ~ ~ ~

-5" ond savanna 50-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~T

qcodif.

0 50 Mlr. iforast regiorr ~ ~ -6' 0 P 1




concession to harvest the fruit or to fell the tree for wine for sale, with the custodian receiving in return a share of the proceeds or some kind of tribute for the maintenance of the stool or for meeting some other communal obligation. Such an arrangement, needless to say, amounted to tenancy where it involved strangers.

By the nineteenth century the system had been modified to incorporate land sales and more tenancy arrangements in response to growing demand for agricultural land, including oil palm land for the production of palm oil and kernels as increasingly lucrative exports, with the Krobo people playing a pioneering role.

Probably the first land purchases by the Krobo occurred in 1814 (Anyane, 1961: 14). Subsequently the practice gained momentum, particularly after 1867, when the Manya Krobo Paramount Chief, Konor Sakite, helped to arrange for the peaceful purchase of neighbouring land by his subjects, who, from about the mid-nineteenth century, had started migrating from their dry coastal savanna homeland north-east of Accra to the more favourable humid forest inland (Fig. 1; Field, 1943; Huber, 1963; M. Johnson, 1964). According to Hill:

it was a commercial crop, the oil palm, which provided the Krobo with much of the incentive to move into the uninhabited forest land owned mainly by the Akim [Akyem], but also by the Akwapim [Akuapem], which lay north of their homeland on the Volta river; and their expulsion from the Krobo mountain in 1892 by the Gold Coast Government hastened their search for good agricultural land. [1963: appendix 11.9, p. 72]

The Krobo went about the acquisition through an arrangement whereby individuals pooled their financial resources through companies or co-operative groups known in Krobo as huza, organised for the purpose of collective bargaining for land. After its purchase the land was shared propor- tionately into privately owned longitudinal strips, zugba, among the company members according to each one's financial contribution towards the group land purchase. Subsequently this novel 'company' concept was apparently adapted by other migrants, notably those originating from the Akuapem ridge north of Accra (Fig. 1). It was mainly the company system that enabled the migrant Akuapem farmers, as well as other migrant farmers, including Krobo people, to acquire land in the forest area west of the ridge, principally Akyem stool lands, for new palm farms during the second half of the nineteenth century-particularly during the last three decades, when palm oil and kernels, the country's main export, were produced in an 'oil palm belt' (Fig. 1) and formed the basis of the commercial economy of the Krobo and Akuapem areas and of much of the country immediately north of the littoral (Anyane, 1961, 1962, 1963; Field, 1943; Hill, 1962, 1963; Howard, 1978; Huber, 1963; M. Johnson, 1964). On the whole, the system did not encounter much difficulty, because of the low population density and the plentiful supply of vacant forest land, particularly in Akyem, where the chiefs proved to be exceptionally willing vendors of land.

Often the land purchases through the company system, like other parcels held privately or, much more commonly, as stool or communal ancestral property, was farmed on a sharecropping basis, which allowed even more

394




strangers access to land. The company system continued to be popular up to about 1950. But the land thereby acquired and the other tracts of land var- iously held during this period of declining palm oil exports came to be used more for cocoa farming than palm farming. Given the greater profitability of cocoa, it can reasonably be assumed that, by the 1950s, when palm oil exports ceased, cocoa, rather than the palm, had become the primary motive for new land acquisitions in the humid forest (Arhin, 1985; Gyasi, 1992; Hill, 1962, 1963), and that by then very little if any new land was being brought into palm cultivation by the peasants anywhere in the palm belt. The only possible exception was the Krobo area, where the palm remained an important cash crop, mainly because the exceptionally high quality of Krobo palm oil, in high demand for local consumption, fetched good prices internally.

ACQUISITIONS IN THE POST-INDEPENDENCE ERA

Ghana became politically independent in 1957. Since then, land acquisitions for oil palm farming have increased tremendously, particularly in the years following 1970, which were characterised by a remarkable oil palm boom (Table 1). This development centred on small peasant farmers whose patterns of land acquisition shed further light on how the system of communal land tenure adapts to change.

Table 2 summarises the modes of land acquisition for small-scale palm farming by 360 farmers randomly surveyed during 1989/90 in thirty settlements (Table 3) in the Kade, Twifo Praso and Pretsea-Adum Banso neighbourhoods (listed in Table 3). Here there are located three large palm plantations in a new 'palm belt' (Fig. 2). Approximately 60 per cent of the farmers were from the Kade area, and 20 per cent each from the Twifo Praso and Pretsea-Adum Banso areas.

The acquisitions may be grouped into two basic categories: those that attracted no payment, and those that attracted payment either in cash or in kind.

The no-payment category comprises the following sub-categories:

1 Family: farms established by family/community members on their family/ community land without charge for the use of the land because of their family/community membership.

2 Gift: farm land received as a gift. 3 First till: free usufruct established over vacant communal land on the basis

of being the first to farm the vacant parcel of land.

TABLE 1. Oil palm hectarage in Ghana, 1970-90

Year 1970 1987 Projection for 1990

Ha 17,820 84,759 102,513

Source. Ghana (1972); Ghana Oil Palm Research Centre (n.d.); National Invest- ment Bank (1987).

395



TABLE 2. Modes of land acquisition for small-scale oil palm farming in three selected areas during 1989/90 (%)

Mode

No-payment Payment

Pure sharecropping Pure Lease- t

First Abunu Abusa Abunan lease/ sharecropping Area Family Gift till (: ) ( - .2) (I .4) rent combination Purchase Other Total s

Kade 24-8 13-8 5-2 7-6 31-0 0-0 11-0 1-4 1.9 3-3 100 p Twifo 30-8 7-7 13-2 14-3 11-0 1-1 18-7 1-1 0-0 2-2 100 > Praso Pretsea- Adum 45-0 7-5 10-0 0-0 18-7 0-0 10-0 1-3 0-0 7-5 100 Banso

Combined 33-5 9-7 9-5 7-3 20-2 0-4 13-2 1-3 0-6 4-3 100 z average

27-9

52-7 43-0 4-3 100

Source. Field survey by author.



z

0

0 z-

FIG. 2 The Kade, Twifo Praso and Pretsea-Adum Banso areas and the emerging oil palm belt in Ghana. (Source: Gyasi, 1992)




TABLE 3 List of settlements where survey of land acquisition for small-scale oil palm farming was conducted during 1989/90

Kade area Twifo Praso area Pretsea - Adum Banso area

1 Abaam 20 Agona 27 Aboade 2 Abenaso 21 Eduabeng 28 Adum Dominase 3 Abirem 22 Hemang 29 Adum Trabuom 4 Abompe 23 Kofi Saah 30 Faasin 5 Anweam 24 Mampong 6 Asuom 25 Ntafrewaso 7 Atobriso 26 Praso 8 Atuakrom 9 Damang

10 Jumestown 11 Kade 12 Kusi 13 Kwae 14 Okumaning 15 Osenase 16 Soabe 17 Takorase 18 Tweapease 19 Wenchi


The payment category comprises the following sub-categories: 1 Pure sharecropping, subdivided into:

(a) Abunu, where the returns from the farm or the farm itself are shared equally between the land 'owner', or 'landlord', and the tenant.

(b) Abusa, where the returns or the farm itself are shared in the ratio of one-third to the 'landlord' and two-thirds to the tenant.

(c) Abunan, where the ratio is one quarter to three-quarters. 2 Pure lease/rent, where on payment of a fee the land was acquired for a

period that would typically range between twenty-five and fifty years. 3 A combination of lease and sharecropping, where the land was acquired for

a set period for a fee and cultivated on a sharecropping basis. 4 Purchase, involving the absolute transfer of ownership for a money consid-

eration.

Other types of acquisition not falling readily into either of the two basic categories are labelled 'Other'.

Nearly 53 per cent of the acquisitions involved no payment, with the largest number occurring in Pretsea-Adum Banso and Twifo Praso areas, probably because of the greater availability of land there, associated with lower population density-less than ninety persons per square kilometre (Census Office, 1973; Central Bureau of Statistics, 1984; Statistical Service, 1987a, b, c)-and poor accessibility. The land was found to be generally owned communally, and the substantial majority, 82 per cent, of the sample of oil palm farmers considered themselves to be permanent residents of the locality where they operated their palm farms (Table 4), which implies that

398




TABLE 4. Distribution of oil palm farmers considering themselves permanent residents of the locality where they had their palm farm, relative to those considering themselves temporary residents (%)

Area Permanent Temporary

Kade 75 25 Twifo Praso 84 16 Pretsea - Adum Banso 88 12

Combined averages 82 18


most of the palm farmers are indigenes or natives enjoying free access to family/communal land. It is not surprising, therefore, that most of the acquisitions involved no payment, with the payment-free family units comprising 33-5 per cent, followed by 'gift' and 'first till', with 9-7 per cent and 9-5 per cent respectively.

Acquisitions involving payment comprised 43-0 per cent, with sharecropping topping the list (27-9 per cent), followed by pure lease/rent (13-2 per cent), a lease-sharecropping combination (1-3 per cent) and purchase (0-6 per cent), which suggests a disinclination to alienate land by sale owing to its increasing scarcity, associated with the expanding population and commercial farming, especially palm farming. Out of the total number of acquisitions involving payment, 72 per cent were by permanent residents, suggesting land shortage among some of the land-owning groups. The remaining 28 per cent consisted of temporary residents (Table 5). As may be expected, the substantial majority, 74 per cent of the temporary residents and stranger or migrant farmers, had access to land for oil palm farming through payment, with the highest concentration in Twifo Praso (87 per cent), followed by Kade (74 per cent) and Pretsea-Adum Banso (60 per cent). In very nearly all the cases the parcels involved were mainly granted and the associated payment received directly by the 'landlords', the chiefs occupying the stools in which the customary allodial land title is vested, or indirectly through other community leaders on behalf of the chief, even though others (including stranger farmers) holding various land use titles and interests were also involved in these commercial land transactions. In

TABLE 5. Distribution of permanent residents paying for palm land, relative to paying temporary residents (%)

Permanent Temporary Area residenta residentb

Kade 67 33 Twifo Praso 69 31 Pretsea - Adum Banso 80 20


aComprising both natives and stranger or migrant farmers bComprising almost entirely stranger or migrant farmers.


399




the Kade area the stools involved included those of Asuom, Kade itself, Kusi, Kwae, Okumaning and Minta, which exercise control over land only within their traditional ruling areas in Akyem Abuakwa State, and the Kyebi-based Ofori Panyin stool, the paramount stool of Akyem Abuakwa, which claims jurisdiction over all Akyem Abuakwa land. Although several stools were involved in the commercial land transactions in the Twifo Praso and Pret- sea-Adum Banso areas, only those at Eduabeng, Mampong and Ntafre- waso in Twifo Praso could be identified. It appeared that the migrant tenant palm farmers were drawn from various parts of the country, most especially those areas experiencing land shortage or where the land is not particularly suited to farming, for example Akuapem, Krobo and other Ga-Adangme areas. This generally accords with the findings of Hill (1963) and Arhin (1985).

Other acquisitions comprised 4-3 per cent of the total, and consisted of family sharecropping on family land among family members; family leasehold, i.e. leasehold arrangements over family land among family members; land given by a spouse; and government/state leasehold, i.e. parcels from the nucleus estates concessions leased out in order to pacify smallholders, peasant farmers dislocated by the state's acquisition of land for the nucleus estates.

These findings, like those of Gyasi (1976) in the densely populated food crop-growing migrant Krobo area, Sekesua-Agbelitsom, in the Eastern Region, and of Arhin (1985) in the new cocoa-growing areas of Central and Western Regions, are indicative of a continuing trend towards rising agricultural land values and a rural land market within the general context of the communal land tenure system, thus providing further evidence of the system's sensitivity and adaptability to economic opportunity.

PROBLEMS AND POSSIBLE COUNTER-MEASURES

Granted the orthodox economic assumption that the free play of supply and demand makes for economic mobility of investment resources and their optimal use, the trend towards a land market should be seen as economically desirable.

However, the efficient functioning of the free market, which enabled vast tracts of stool or communal land (including family-held land) to be turned into oil palm and cocoa plantations by strangers and non-strangers alike in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, and which has permitted the acquisition of more land for the post-1970 oil palm boom, could be hampered by the insecurity characteristic of communal/family land transfers. The insecurity arises from lack of clarity concerning the land-allocating authorities, poorly defined boundaries, and the undocumented character both of the land transactions and of the existing interests in communal land. Often the result is wasteful disputes, including intra-family ones such as those associated with an oil palm farm established without charge by a family member of the family land, noted in the course of the field survey for this article. Reportedly, such farms sometimes become the subject of dispute when they have started yielding, as other family members demand from the owner of the farm a share in the harvest or in the proceeds because the palms are on family property. During the field survey for this article I encountered two victims of such demands at Akyem

400




TABLE 6. Distribution of sharecroppers whose land-holding agreement permitted the growing of other crops in addition to the palm, relative to those whose agreement did not

Area Permitted Did not permit

Kade 75 25 Twifo Praso 62 38 Pretsea-Adum Banso 90 10



Wenchi, near Kade, who, rather than share the fruits of their labour, felled the palm trees in order to return the land to the family. This and other problems associated with the communal land tenure system might be solved or mitigated, and land transactions rendered simpler and more secure, through land title registration, an idea advocated over thirty years ago (Ministry of Agriculture, 1962; Pogucki, 1962) but only recently translated into law (PNDC, 1986).

Another factor that could hinder the development of a popular rural land market, the oil palm industry, and agriculture as a whole, is the tendency of landowners to capitalise on rising land values and demand tenancy terms that disfavour the tenants. The field survey revealed that the abunu system, favouring landowners, has been gaining at the expense of abusa, which favours the tenants. There were also reports of a growing disinclination among land allocating authorities to lease land for sharecropping that involves crops other than the increasingly profitable oil palm, and of greater restrictions on the area that may be used for food crops on land leased principally for oil palm on a sharecropping basis, a situation which has obvious negative implications for local food supplies. Indeed, 24 per cent of the sample of oil palm sharecroppers indicated that their land-holding agreement did not permit the growing of crops other than oil palm (Table 6). This was particularly so in the Twifo Praso and Kade areas, where land values might have been expected to be higher because of the greater commercialisation of land there (Table 2).

CONCLUSION

The foregoing analysis seems to support the view that the communal land ownership system is adaptable to economic opportunity or change and does not, therefore, require the sort of radical reform advocated explicitly or implicitly by various scholars, including Arhin (1985) and Ninsin (1989). In the second half of the nineteenth century, when there occurred a substantial rise in the demand for land on which to grow the increasingly profitable oil palm, against a background of relative land abundance in Ghana, the system responded by land sales, tenancy and other temporary transfers to strangers in exchange for payment in cash or kind, while retaining more than sufficient land for use by the community of owners. It responded similarly in subsequent periods when the demand for land for cocoa, the lucrative new crop, increased dramatically. In the post-1970 period, during a second palm boom, the system appeared to respond to

401




the renewed demand for land by temporary transfer arrangements, to the almost total exclusion of outright sale, apparently so that the finite quantity of communal land might be safeguarded and retained for use by the owners in the wake of population growth of about 3 per cent per annum, agricultural expansion and other forms of pressure on the land.

There are, however, certain defects in the communal system. For example, the security of land granted or transferred under the system appears dubious at best, and intra-family disputes sometimes arise from the turning over of communal/family land to palm cropping by individual community/family members because of uncertainties about who has the authority to allocate land, and because the boundaries of and interest in communal land tends to be poorly defined and undocumented. But the answer to these and other defects of the communal system does not, I would submit, lie in radical land reform measures. In particular, it is not to be found in nationalisation or absolute state ownership, which, on the basis of the experience of northern Ghana (Arhin, 1985; Ladouceur, 1979; Land Administration Research Centre, 1977; Ninsin, 1989; Sagoe, 1981) and of various countries, including Nigeria (Francis, 1984; Nigeria, 1978) and Ethiopia (Abate and Kiros, 1983), appears futile, and therefore wasteful of resources, because of the difficulty or impossibility of enforcement; it also appears to be pernicious, socially destabilising, bureaucratic and administratively unwieldy, prone to favourit- ism, or stifling of enterprise and therefore economically counterproductive.

A promising solution lies in more efficient administration of the Land Title Registration Law, introduced in 1986 (PNDC, 1986), to 'provide machinery for the registration of title to land and interests in land' (PNDC, 1986: i) to 'give certainty and facilitate the proof of title ... render dealings in land safe, simple and cheap and prevent frauds on purchases and mortgages' (PNDC, 1986: i), so as to minimise land litigation, protect the interests of stranger farmers, and correct other defects in the tenurial system. The administrative arrangements involve a Land Title Registry with which ownership and interests should be registered compulsorily, in stages, starting with the Greater Accra Region and designated agricultural areas. Now the major challenge is to accelerate implementation of the law by popularising it through grass-roots education, especially of illiterate small rural peasants, and by providing needy people with the necessary financial, legal and other technical support to enable them secure their title or interest in land under the new legal facility. The problem of inequitable tenancies and the concentration of land in the hands of elites might be mitigated by flexible regulatory measures involving, among other things, broad ceilings on rentals and land holdings, based on economic as well as social equity principles, in order to enhance the economic mobility and efficient use of the land for the benefit of both grantor and grantee within the general framework of an essentially free market system which, though not perfect, generally appears to be the most effective mechanism known for allocating and utilising resources.

REFERENCES

Abate, A., and Kiros, F. G. 1983. 'Agrarian reform, structural changes and rural development in Ethiopia', in A. K. Ghose (ed.), Agrarian Reform in Contemporary

402




Developing Countries, chapter 4. London and Sydney: Croom Helm; New York: St Martin's Press.

Anyane, S. La. 1961. 'The oil palm belt in Ghana', Ghana Bulletin of Agricultural Economics 1 (1), 7-43.

--1962. 'Agriculture in the general economy', in J. B. Wills (ed.), Agriculture and Land Use in Ghana, pp. 192-200. Accra and New York: Oxford University Press.

1963. Ghana Agriculture. its economic development from early times to the middle of the twentieth century. London and Accra: Oxford University Press.

Arhin, Kwame. 1985. The Expansion of Cocoa Production: the working conditions of migrant cocoa farmers in the Central and Western Regions. Legon: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.

Bauer, P. T., and Yamey, B. S. 1957. The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries. London: Nisbet.

Bentsi-Enchill, K. 1964. Ghana Land Law: an exposition. Analysis and critique. London: Sweet & Maxwell.

Census Office. 1973. 1970 Population Census of Ghana. Preliminary Report. Accra. Central Bureau of Statistics. 1984. 1984 Population Census of Ghana. Preliminary

Report. Accra. Dickson, K. B., and Benneh, G. 1988. A New Geography of Ghana. London: Longman. Dunning, H. C. 1970. 'Land reform in Ethiopia: a case study in non-development',

UCLA Law Review 18 (2), 271-307. Reproduced as LTC Reprint 97, Madison, Wis.: Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin.

Field, M. J. 1943. 'The agricultural system of the Manya - Krobo of the Gold Coast', Africa 14 (2), 54-65.

Francis, Paul. 1984. 'For the use and common benefit of all Nigerians: consequences of the 1978 land nationalisation', Africa 54 (3), 5-28.

Ghana Oil Palm Research Centre. N.d. 'The Oil Palm Industry in Ghana: main problems and constraints'. Kusi-Kade, Ghana, mimeo.

Ghana, Republic of. 1972. Report on Ghana Sample Census of Agriculture, 1970 1. Accra: Economics and Marketing Division, Ministry of Agriculture.

Gyasi, E. A. 1976. 'Population pressure and changes in traditional agriculture: case study of farming in Sekesua - Agbelitsom, Ghana', Bulletin of Ghana Geographi- cal Association 18, 68-87.

- 1992. 'Emergence of a new oil palm belt in Ghana', JESG (Journal of Economic and Social Geography) 83 (1), 39-49.

Hill, P. 1962. 'Ghanaian capitalist cocoa farmers', Ghanaian Bulletin of Agricultural Economics 2 (1), 26-30.

-- 1963. The Migrant Cocoa-farmers of Southern Ghana: study in rural capitalism. London: Cambridge University Press.

Howard, R. 1978. Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Ghana. London: Croom Helm. Huber, H. 1963. The Krobo. St Augustin near Bonn: Anthropos Institute. Johnson, Lily De-Graft. 1962. 'The development of land tenure systems in Ghana and

attempts at reform in the past', Ghana Bulletin of Agricultural Economics 2 (1), 16-20. Johnson, M. 1964. 'Migrant progress', Bulletin of the Ghana Geographical Association

9 (2), 4-27. King, D. J. 1973. 'Land Reform and Participation of the Rural Poor in the Develop-

ment Process of African Countries'. Madison, Wis.: Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin, mimeo. Draft, prepared for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Ladouceur, P. A. 1979. Chiefs and Politicians: the politics of regionalism in northern Ghana. London: Longman.

Land Administration Research Centre. 1977. CSIR North East Ghana Savannah Research Projects. Socio-economic and Land Use Project component: Land Use Agricultural Production Land Tenure and Administration. Kumasi: Land Adminis- tration Research Centre, University of Science and Technology.

403




Lewis, W. A. 1955. The Theory of Economic Growth. Homewood, III.: Irwin. Migot-Adholla, S. E., Benneh, G., Atsu, S., and Place, F. 1990. 'Land Tenure Issues

and Agricultural Productivity in Ghana'. Paper presented at seminar on Land Tenure and Agricultural Productivity sponsored by the World Bank in Ghana, Accra, 13 June.

Ministry of Agriculture, Division of Agricultural Economics, 1962. 'Report on a survey of land tenure systems in Ghana', Ghanaian Bulletin of Agricultural Economics 2 (1), 1-15.

National Investment Bank. 1987. 'An Agro-industrial Study: the oil palm industry'. Accra, mimeo.

Nigeria, Federal Republic of. 1978. Land Use Decree, 1978. Lagos. Ninsin, K. A. 1989. 'The land question since the 1950s', in E. Hansen and K. A.

Ninsin (eds.), The State. development andpolitics in Ghana, pp. 165-83. London: CODESRIA.

Ollenu,.M. A. 1962. Principles of Customary Land Law in Ghana. London: Sweet & Maxwell.

Parsons, K. H. 1971. 'Customary Land Tenure and the Development of African Agriculture'. LTC Paper 77, Madison, Wis.: Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin, reproduction of FAO Report No. RP 14, Rome: FAO.

Pogucki, R. J. H. 1962. 'Notes on codification of land law and registration of title to land', Ghanaian Bulletin of Agricultural Economics 2 (1), 21-5.

Provisional National Defence Council. 1986. P.N.D.C.L. 152. Land Title Registration Law, 1986. Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation.

Sagoe, K. A. 1981. 'Memorandum on Compensation for Lands Acquired by Govern- ment for Development Projects', Appendix II of Republic of Ghana, Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Payment of Compensation for Lands acquired by the Government for Development Projects, Part One. Accra.

Shephard, C. Y. 1936. Report on the Economics of Peasant Agriculture in the Gold Coast. Accra: Government Printer.

Statistical Service. 1987a. 1984 Population Census of Ghana. demographic and economic characteristics. Eastern Region. Accra.

-- 1987b. 1984 Population Census of Ghana. demographic and economic characteristics. Central Region. Accra.

-- 1987c. 1984 Population Census of Ghana. demographic and economic characteristics. Western Region. Accra.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to thank the University of Ghana, Legon, for providing financial support for the research leading to this article.

ABSTRACT

A school of thought sees the African communal system of land ownership as an inherently conservative arrangement which does not adapt or adapts only slowly to economic opportunity and, therefore, acts as a constraint on development. However, this view, which partly underlies the call for radical land reform measures such as nationalisation, is, generally, not borne out by the performance of the Ghanaian system as assessed on the basis of historical evidence and the findings of a recent survey of peasant oil palm farming. In the nineteenth century, when there was a substantial increase in demand for land for the oil palm against a background of relative land abundance in Ghana, the system responded with land sales, tenancy and other temporary transfers which allowed enterprising migrant farmers, notably Krobo farmers, access to land, while sufficient parcels were retained for use by the communal owners, including the Akyem people, the major vendors of land for oil palm and cocoa farming in the forest zone. This response pattern was repeated in

404




subsequent periods characterised by greater demand for land for the cultivation of cocoa, which supplanted the oil palm as the premier export early in the present century. Further evidence of the adaptability of the communal system is provided by its response to the renewed demand for land in respect of the remarkable post-1970 oil palm boom. A recent sample study of oil palm farming in the Kade, Twifo Praso and Pretsea - Adum Banso areas in the heart of the oil palm belt found that the communal system had been responding to the renewed demand for land associated with the crop's growing profitability, mainly by temporary transfer arrangements to the almost total exclusion of outright sale, apparently to protect the sovereign interest of the community of owners and to secure land for their own use in the wake of rapidly expanding population, urbanisation and attendant increasing land scarcity. But the communal system as traditionally organised continues to be characterised by the insecurity of the tenure granted, especially to stranger farmers, while there are signs that the number of inequitable tenancies is on the increase. These problems might be minimised and land development enhanced by greater enforcement of the new land title registration law, and by flexible tenancy and other land-holding regulatory measures within the general framework of a free market system.

RESUME

Une certaine ecole de pensee voit le systeme communautaire des proprietes des terres comme un arrangement en lui-meme conservateur qui ne s'adapte pas ou s'adapte seulement lentement aux opportunites economiques et qui agit donc comme une con- trainte sur le developpement. Cependant cette vue, qui est en partie a l'origine de la demande pour des mesures radicales de reforme des terres comme la nationalisation, n'est generalement pas confirmee par la pratique du systeme Ghanaian en l'eva- luant sur la base de temoignages historiques des resultats d'une enquete recente sur la cultivation paysanne de l'huile de palmier. Au dix-neuvieme siecle, quand il y avait eu une augmentation importante de la demande de terres pour l'huile de palmier dans un contexte d'une abondance relative des terres au Ghana, le systeme a repondu par la vente de terres, locations, et autres transferts qui permettaient aux agriculteurs migrants entreprenant, notamment les agriculteurs Krobo, d'avoir acces aux terres, tandis que les parcelles suffisantes avaient ete conservees pour etre utilisees par les proprietaires communautaires, y compris par le peuple Akyem, les plus gros ven- deurs de terres pour l'huile de palmier et la cultivation de cacao dans la zone forest- iere. Ce modele de reponse a ete repete a des periodes ulterieures caracterisees par une demande plus grande des terres pour cultiver l'huile de palmier en tant que premier export plus t6t dans notre siecle. Davantage de temoignages quant a l'adaptabilite du systeme communautaire ont 6et fournis par sa reponse a la demande renouvellee pour les terres par rapport au remarquable boom d'huile de palmier apres 1970. L'echantillon recent d'une etude sur la cultivation de l'huile de palmier au Kade, Twifo Praso, et les endroits de Pretsea-Adum Banso au coeur de la ceinture de l'huile de palmier a trouve que le systeme communautaire avait repondu a la demande renouvellee pour les terres associees avec la rentabilite de la cultivation, surtout par des arrangements de transferts temporaires jusqu'a l'exclusion presque totale de vente directe, apparemment pour proteger les interets souverains de la communaute des proprietaires et sauvegarder les terres pour leur propre usage alors qu'il y a une population rapidement croissante, l'urbanisation, et une rarete des terres actuellement en augmentation. Mais le systeme communautaire de la faGon dont il etait organise con- tinue a etre caracterise par l'insecurite du regime foncier accorde en particulier aux agriculteurs inconnus, tandis que le nombre des locations inequitables est en train d'augmenter. Ces problemes peuvent etre minimises et le developpement de la terre renforcee par la mise en vigueur de la nouvelle loi d'enregistrement des titres de pro- pri&et et par une location flexible et autres mesures regulatoires d'appropriation des terres dans le cadre d'un systeme de libre marche.

405



Documents

The Adaptability of African Communal Land Tenure to Economic Opportunity: The Example of Land Acquisition for Oil Palm Farming in Ghana