Ghana: Women Lose Their Farms to Biofuel Production

Ghanaian small scale farmers, particularly women, are facing displacement from their farm lands.

In recent times, the northern parts of Ghana are said to be witnessing an influx of foreign companies engaged in jatropha and sugar-cane plantation for biofuel production.
Regrettably, some of these companies that are investing in biofuel production acquire large track of land but only pay the farmers for the portion of the land they utilize, in spite of an existing contract.

Current trends in the biofuel production, with major policy thrust globally points to many motivations. Some analysts have reckoned that it has been difficult to estimate the costs and benefits of production of biofuel.

The Global Convention on Food Security requires governments to develop and implement national food security plans and to create an international network of local, national, and regional food reserves.

Energy crisis and high cost of fossil fuel have given rise to the quest for alternative energy source of biofuel. Sadly, women as social and economic constituencies are often marginalized in most economic policies, even though they are most pinched by such policies.

In a developing country such as Ghana, biofuel production entails the use of productive lands and not marginal lands at the expense of food production for food and livelihood security.

The use of crops such as maize, soya bean, sugar cane, oil palm, sorghum for biofuel production also have serious implications for food security.

It is exactly the areas that women congregate such as agriculture which has long been an important source of income for them, that would be under attack amidst biofuel production craze.

Although women dominate in the agriculture sector, which engages over fifty percent of the population directly, only few of them are engaged in cash crop production, which is mostly supported by government to be competitive, compared to food crop which engages majority of women.

According to Mr. David Eli of Food Security Policy and Advocacy Network (FoodSPAN) prices of food went up last year because industrialized countries used them to produce fuel to correct the ills of climate change.

“People are crying because they don’t have their livelihoods concerns being met. There is no policy guideline by government. What will happen to our land, food security in future if we leave our land to the production of jatropha for fuel?”, he inquired.

AllAfrica