TRENDS AND IMPACTS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY AGRICULTURE

chiefs, irrespective of whose land was part of the
transaction (Tsikata and Yaro, 2011).
During this study, however, responses from
local community members pointed to the lack
of a consultative process that preceded the
acquisition of the land from the local chiefs
in 2008, and the displacement of a number
of families from their source of livelihood, the
land. Examples of these responses from three
community chiefs are given in box 1.
The above local accounts suggest that land
acquisition by Solar Harvest Ltd lacked wide
stakeholder consultation. This has generated
tension in the communities, and a potential
for conflict. In the case of Jimle, for example,
community members have returned to occupy
and use company lands that are currently
uncultivated and this corroborates the assessment
by Tsikata and Yaro (2011) that only 400 hectares
of the total of 10 847 hectares acquired by
the company are currently used for jatropha
cultivation. There arises, therefore, the question
of security of tenure as community members and
the company both now contest ownership and
use rights over the land. CICOL (2008) also noted
tenure insecurity in the case of the Solar Harvest
Ltd land acquisition. The likely consequence of
this is rising tensions and ultimately conflict in
the area. Perhaps the reverence for the chiefs
in the area, and particularly for the Tijo-Na,
is what has prevented the tensions escalating
into conflict between community members and
the company. The inability of the company to
keep to its promise of job creation has further
strained relations between the company and
the locals. Under these circumstances, the lack
of compensation to farmers who lost their land
has negatively affected their livelihoods. This
analysis points to the need for Solar Harvest Ltd
to improve on implementing the principles of
responsible agricultural investment, especially in
respect of land acquisition. The current guidelines
being developed by the Lands Commission are
therefore critical.
For example, a 45-year old widow of Kpachaa
told her story as follows:
“They [Solar Harvest] came to grow jatropha
for fuel and as result I have lost my three
Part 4: Business models for agricultural investment:
Impacts on local development
acres of farmland which I depended on for
a living. There was no proper acquisition of
my farmland. It was just taken away from
me under the instructions of the chief. In
the beginning, the company employed me
as a casual worker, but I have now been laid
off and am suffering because I cannot get
alternative land to farm and I was not given
compensation. Even eating is a problem now
but I am powerless to fight the company.”
The above highlights the implications of Solar
Harvest Ltd’s operations for secondary land rights
holders such as women. The situation worsens
when the environmental resource base – on
which they rely for alternative sources of income,
e.g. fruits from trees – is cleared for large-scale
plantation farming.
While it is estimated that hundreds of farmers
lost their farm lands to the company, available
evidence collected during the study suggest
that loss of land (of around 400 acres) for both
resident farmers in Kpachaa and for famers who
reside in a different community and commute to
Kpachaa to farm (“nonresident farmers”).
From the evidence gathered, it was determined
that the average size of farmers’ land lost was 9.5
acres and 4.1 acres for non-resident farmers and
resident farmers respectively. The non-resident
farmers were mostly from Tamale, while resident
farmers lived in the communities where the land
was acquired by Solar Harvest Ltd. The difference
in land size can be explained by the fact that most
non-resident farmers from towns have commercial
motives and better resources to acquire and
cultivate larger sizes of land than resident farmers
in the villages, who lack these resources and
cultivate smallholdings on a subsistence basis. So
the non-resident farmers lost more land because
they had more to lose.
It is also important to note that no women
were determined to have lost land. This conforms
to the customary practice in Dagbon traditional
area, and northern Ghana as a whole, that land
inheritance is patrilineal, but women generally
have access to use of land and in some cases,
widows can lay ownership claims to land as the
example of the 45 year-old widow of Kpachaa
above illustrates.
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GHANA