Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Sustaining diversity of yams
in northern Ghana
Gordana Kranjac-Berisavljevic and Bizoola Z. Gandaa
Introduction
In northern Ghana, yam cultivation is widespread in almost all the settlements.
A survey carried out by the northern Ghana PLEC team in 2001 indicates that
about 75 per cent of farmers in Bongnayili-Dugu-Song, the main PLEC demon-
stration site in northern Ghana cultivate yam (Map B). On an average, about five
yam types are found on every yam farmer's field.
Blench described yam species cultivated in West Africa as “one of the crops at
the dynamic frontier between wild and domestic” (Blench, 1997:1), since there is
much information about yam which has not yet been investigated by researchers.
He further argues that such crops have much to offer in terms of food security, since
people continue to cultivate them. It is generally understood by farmers that new
yam species are brought from the bush or forest (
YoÂo
in the Dagbani language).
Yam domestication practices in northern Ghana
Newly discovered yam seedlings in the forest are sometimes “bitter” in taste or
tasteless. Fetish priests in northern Ghana commonly domesticate new yam types
brought into the community in shrines, even though individual farmers can cultivate
yam brought from the forest on their own. New yam types are cultivated about four
to seven years before being given a name, which is often descriptive in nature.
Some of the shrines are located at Siiyare, Birikum, and Gambugu, all settlements
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