Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The principal livestock are chicken, goats, and sheep. Ducks, rabbits, and
cattle were kept on a very limited basis. On the whole, animals were managed
on a free-range basis, even though goats and sheep are often tethered during the
day to prevent damage to nearby farms. At night they are commonly confined
in the household compound. Fowls may perch on neighbouring trees. In
Gyamfiase-Adenya seven farmers confined and fed their sheep and goats in
pens permanently.
Gender division of labour
Mainly the owner and his/her family operate farms. Other forms of labour include
that hired, especially for land clearing and weeding. Also common is the
nnoboa
system whereby farmers work in each other's farms on a reciprocal basis.
There is considerable division of labour. Mainly males clear land, while its
preparation is mainly by females, as is transportation of produce to home and the
market. However, the tasks of planting, weeding, and harvesting are shared more
or less equally among the males and females.
Resource tenure
Land tenure
As elaborated upon in Chapter 18, in the demonstration sites, as in Ghana gener-
ally, land is owned as common, group, clan, or family property. The land is freely
used by those owning it, but typically paid for in cash or in kind by others.
Thus, there are two principal means of access to land. The first, the most fun-
damental, is based on kinship. It involves no payment, unlike the second, which
involves payment based on a tenancy contract. Access to land may also be
achieved by purchase. Such purchases are private property or, eventually, they
become ancestral or extended family property. Many of the farmers operate as
owner-occupiers on the basis of kinship. However, others operate as tenants.
The land-tenure situation is a complex one. Aspects of it, notably the follow-
ing, may help to explain biophysical status including the status of biodiversity in
agricultural areas:
•
security of the tenure
•
the spatial layout of the landholdings and the attendant settlement pattern.
Tree tenure
Tenure with respect to trees is just as complex. By traditional customary law or
convention, timber trees are owned exclusively by the landowner. However, under
modern Western-type law, which supersedes the customary, ownership of such
