Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Observations that are reported elsewhere indicate less favourable biophysical
conditions in migrant-tenant farmer localities. Indications include the following:
•
a greater dominance of grass and non-flora species
•
fewer trees
•
more erosion, soil exhaustion, acidic soils, and crusted surfaces
•
more of cassava/manioc (
Manihot utilisima
), a crop that is tolerant of poor
edaphic conditions, and less of crops that require better soil and moisture
conditions, e.g. cocoa (
Theobroma cacao
), cocoyam (
Xanthosoma
sp.), and
plantain (
Musa paradisiaca
)
•
less crop diversity and a greater trend towards cassava monoculture
•
greater landscape denudation.
In Gyamfiase village, which is predominantly owner-occupied, there remains a
relict forest surrounded by a biodiverse indigenous agroforestry zone, which deter-
iorates towards Kokormu, a core stranger-tenant-farmer locality occupied by the
Ayigbe people (Gyasi, 1998).
Similarly, biodiversity generally appears to be less in the tenant units in Sekesua-
Osonson and Amanase-Whanabenya, where tenancies are estimated to comprise
30 per cent and owner-occupied units 70 per cent of the total number of farmed
units. This is particularly so in Amanase-Whanabenya. The immediate surrounding
of Amanase town is severely deforested and cropped to cassava/manioc, in many
cases almost to the total exclusion of other crops, by recent Ayigbe migrant-settler
tenant farmers. It contrasts sharply with the less deforested and more biodiverse dis-
tant areas of Whanabenya and Aboabo farmed to a wider assortment of crops on an
owner-occupier basis by the landlords, who are Shai and Akuapem people. Their
forebears migrated in about 100 years ago for cocoa cultivation (Hill, 1963). In a
similar pattern, of all the land-use types surveyed by PLEC in the three demonstra-
tion sites, owner-managed home garden agroforestries showed the greatest biodi-
versity, especially in Sekesua-Osonson (Table 18.1).
From the preceding, on the whole biophysical conditions including the diver-
sity of flora are less favourable in tenant-operated areas. The situation might be
so because, probably, tenants are, for the most part, allotted exhausted plots or
those of an inferior quality that cannot support a high diversity of plants life. But
perhaps a more plausible explanation lies in the overfarming of tenancy units.
Overfarming is fuelled by what, in group discussions, tenants described as usuri-
ous fees. Many of them could not afford a yearly rental fee of ¢24,000 (US$3
approximately) to ¢120,000 (US$15) per acre, or ¢57,600 (US$7.20) to ¢288,000
(US$36) per hectare. Under sharecropping, typically a landlord takes a third of
the maize crop and a half of cassava and all other major crops, in addition to
retaining rights over economically valuable trees such as the oil-palm.
As a tenant remarked in Gyamfiase-Adenya, “Due to the fact that our
[tenants'] share of the cassava is not enough to pay for the labour cost
and to meet other demands, we have to continuously till that same piece of
land so as to ensure some income on a regular basis.” Similarly, another in
