Land Tenure and Agricultural Development in Ghana: The Intersection of Class, Culture and Gender

2003 ◽  
pp. 273-303
Author(s):  
Oluwatoyin Bukola Chete

Aims: This paper reviews the body of evidence on gender and agriculture and gender and enterprise (including farm enterprise) development in developing countries. Results: The resurgence of interest on the influence of gender and its subsequent mainstreaming into social and economic programmes and in particular, agricultural policy and practice, is largely a development of the 1990s and beyond. The extant body of literature on gender and agriculture is dominated by the liberal feminist construction that women are the disadvantaged group regarding resources such as time, assets (particularly land and credit) and household burden,Agricultural development would be facilitated if both men and women have equal access to resources for use in agricultural work. Conclusion: There is no unique pathway for bringing this about nor are there singular notions of success. Indeed, gender issues should be integrated into the agricultural enterprise from the beginning on the back of broad-based needs assessment schemes. Recommendation: The range of gender issues requiring intervention should include progressive identification and systematic dismantling of socio-cultural, ideological, institutional and legal barriers to equal participation of men and women in agricultural enterprise, orientating and skilling extension workers on gender issues and developing women and men cadre in extension services to cater to the specific needs of each gender and creating equal opportunities in education, employment and politics taking account of the realities of both gender.


1978 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Coldham

As the land adjudication and consolidation programme made progress in the Kikuyu Land Unit in the middle of the nineteen-fifties, it became clear that the traditional system of land tenure would have to be replaced by a system based on the registration of individual titles. Customary law was seen as an obstacle to agricultural development. Customary rules of inheritance could destroy the benefits of land consolidation. Moreover, the individual farmer had little incentive to develop his holding under customary arrangements. This point of view was illustrated by the Swynnerton Plan which proposed that “the African farmer … be provided with such security of tenure through an indefeasible title as will encourage him to invest his labour and profits into the development of his farm and as will enable him to offer it as security against financial credits”. Swynnerton hoped that the security of title conferred by registration would create a land market enabling fanners owning unviable plots or unworkable fragments to sell them off to neighbours who would be in a position to develop them more effectively. In this way “… energetic or rich Africans will be able to acquire more land and bad or poor farmers less, creating a landed and a landless class”, a process which he calls “a normal step in the evolution of a country”.


2021 ◽  

Abstract This book delivers new conceptual and empirical studies surrounding the design and evaluation of land governance, focusing on land management approaches, land policy issues, advances in pro-poor land tenure and land-based gender concerns. It explores alternative approaches for land management and land tenure through international experiences. Themes include Islamic tenure, reverse migration, matriarchy/matrilineal systems, structural inequality, tenure-responsive planning, land-related instabilities and COVID-19, urban-rural land concerns, women's tenure bargaining, tenure-gender nexus concerns in developing and developed countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Helen O. Nduka ◽  
Uche R. Ezeokafor ◽  
Gabriel E. Ekwere ◽  
Ikechukwu E. Ngoka

Women have been the focus of gender disparity and this has been widely referred to the disparity faced by women in the field of agriculture. Agricultural credit is imperative for sustainable agricultural development in any country of the world. In order to substantiate the assertion, this study evaluated the issues of gender disparity in farmers’ access to agricultural credit among cooperative societies in Anambra north zone of Anambra State. Specific objectives were to ascertain the quantum of credit obtained and repaid by female and male members; determine the effect of gender on the quantum of credit obtained and repaid; ascertain critical factors influencing access to credit by cooperative members; determine how gender contributed to credit repayment behaviour of cooperative members and examine perception of members on gender-related issues in credit operations. ANOVA and regression models were used to test hypotheses 1-5. Findings revealed that male members obtained more credit than female members, and female members repay more than their male counterparts. Gender was not a significant determinant of credit obtained and repaid by cooperative members and gender issues in credit operation were handled among cooperative members. However, the researcher recommended that the issues of gender inequality should not be encouraged. Both males and females should have equal access to credit and repayment of credit operation; despite the membership strength, more members should be encouraged to join cooperative societies in order to access credit and repay accordingly and cooperative officers should set up friendly credit scheme to ensure a functional and effective credit access.


1978 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco M. G. Guadagni

This essay is part of a study on the development of land law in Somalia from the end of the last century up to present times. In the following pages an attempt is made to illustrate some of the legal problems connected with the grafting of Western law onto an African land tenure system in a colonial setting. Originally agricultural development and exploitation was not the determining aim of the Italian occupation on the Indian Ocean Coast. In the early Italian plans for colonial expansion on the Horn of Africa, Somalia was primarily regarded as an important political and commercial area. The ultimate goal of these plans was the fertile lands of the Ethiopian plateau, towards which Eritrea and Somalia contained respectively, the Northern and Southern access routes. Occupation of the upper and lower regions of what would be the Italian East Africa colony (Africa Orientale Italiana) was the political and military preliminary to conquering the Ethiopian highlands, the produce of which, once the conquest of the whole Horn of Africa had been completed, would find its natural outlets through Eritrean and Somali ports.


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