From Agroforestry to Agroindustry: Smallholder Access to Benefits From Oil Palm in Ghana and the Implications for Sustainability Certification

Khatun, Kaysara; Maguire‐Rajpaul, Victoria A.; Asante, Elizabeth A.; McDermott, Constance L.

doi:10.3389/fsufs.2020.00029

Cited by 24 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…Therefore, diversifying by planting other crops-particularly oil palm, planting timber species, or seeking other non-agricultural income streams were identified as important adaptive actions. A common motivation for cocoa farmers to grow oil palm trees is that they yield many different products and that they provide a year-round income source (Khatun et al, 2020); for example, this farmer justified diversifying into palm because: "When cocoa is offseason, I can earn a little from palm every fortnight or so." Other farmers elaborated on palm's performance despite extreme weather events, such as droughts: "You cannot depend on cocoa only, because there are only two cocoa seasons.…”

Section: Adaptive Actions and Agricultural Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Information's Impact on the Adaptive Capacity of Ghana's Smallholder Cocoa Farmers

Maguire‐Rajpaul

Khatun

Hirons

2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Ghanaian smallholders grow one quarter of the world's cocoa, but climate change, individual extreme weather events, such as droughts, as well as deforestation increasingly threaten cocoa production. Pertinent information could bolster adaptive capacity. However, in Ghana's cocoa sector, relevant agricultural information is not available to all farmers, which can exacerbate power asymmetries. This paper focuses on how (i) agricultural and drought-adaptive information and (ii) socioeconomic characteristics shape a cocoa farmer's adaptive capacity. We conducted our study in the aftermath of 2015-16's prolonged El Niño-induced drought that negatively impacted the livelihoods of cocoa smallholders across Ghana. In 48 semi-structured interviews and 12 focus groups, we asked smallholders how they responded to the drought to decipher how adaptive capacity compares between farmers receiving four different sources of agricultural information, and of diverse socioeconomic status. Overall, agricultural information improved cocoa farmers' adaptive capacity compared to those who received no formal agricultural information. Smallholders detailed adaptive techniques that would be accessible to, and thus replicable by, other poorly-resourced cocoa farmers. Shade tree management and income diversification were identified as pertinent adaptive actions. However, we identified a divergence between exposure to agricultural information and its transformation into substantive adaptive action. Additionally, informal information sharing between smallholders represents an underutilized resource by extension programmes. We found that adaptive capacity is also determined by socioeconomic characteristics: particularly gender, and to a lesser extent formal education level, proximity to asphalt roads, and land tenure. Finally, we present evidence that framing adaptive techniques in relatable terms that resonate with farmers' immediate livelihood concerns could narrow the adaptation deficit prevalent in Ghana's cocoa sector.

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Section: Adaptive Actions and Agricultural Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Information's Impact on the Adaptive Capacity of Ghana's Smallholder Cocoa Farmers

Maguire‐Rajpaul

Khatun

Hirons

2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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“…Addressing vulnerabilities to alleviate multiple dimensions of smallholder poverty is not chocolate corporations' core concern (Odijie, 2019). Any humanitarian rhetoric found in CSC policy belies the reality of chocolate corporations acting to secure their bottom line: the continued supply of cocoa to the Global North, even if it means sabotaging Ivorian and Ghanaian rural livelihoods by not supporting smallholders to diversify into other more drought-resilient crops such as oil palm and rubber (Khatun et al, 2020;Ruf, 2015). Many interviewed farmers extolled the benefits of diversifying into palm especially under climate change conditions, such as "You cannot depend on cocoa only … whereas palm you can harvest it every day, even under drought conditions."…”

Section: Exploitative Supply Chains In Côte D'ivoire and Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

Plotting the coloniality of conservation

Collins

Maguire‐Rajpaul

Krauss

et al. 2021

Journal of Political Ecology

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Contemporary and market-based conservation policies, constructed as rational, neutral and apolitical, are being pursued around the world in the aim of staving off multiple, unfolding and overlapping environmental crises. However, the substantial body of research that examines the dominance of neoliberal environmental policies has paid relatively little attention to how colonial legacies interact with these contemporary and market-based conservation policies enacted in the Global South. It is only recently that critical scholars have begun to demonstrate how colonial legacies interact with market-based conservation policies in ways that increase their risk of failure, deepen on-the-ground inequalities and cement global injustices. In this article, we take further this emerging body of work by showing how contemporary,market-based conservation initiatives extend the temporalities and geographies of colonialism, undergird long-standing hegemonies and perpetuate exploitative power relations in the governing of nature-society relations, particularly in the Global South. Reflecting on ethnographic insights from six different field sites across countries of the Global South, we argue that decolonization is an important and necessary step in confronting some of the major weaknesses of contemporary conservation and the wider socio-ecological crisis itself. We conclude by briefly outlining what decolonizing conservation might entail.

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“…Both youth and women/wives are no longer guaranteed easy access to land". A recent study in oil palm growing villages in the Ashanti and Central Regions report that access to land is influenced by a combination of one's personal networks, local political connections, and gender (Khatun et al 2020).…”

Section: Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Economy of the Oil Palm Value Chain in Ghana

Asante¹

2021

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Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is of strategic importance to the Ghanaian economy. It is the second most important industrial crop after cocoa and is used widely in local food preparation as well as in industrial processing. In spite of its importance, however, oil palm has consistently underperformed since the early twentieth century. This paper conducts a value chain analysis of the crop, foregrounding the political economy factors that shape the performance of the sector. It draws on a combination of in-depth interviews conducted in March 2020 with a variety of value chain actors and a review of the secondary literature. Additionally, between late May and early June 2020, twelve further interviews were conducted as part of a rapid market survey to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the value chain.

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From Agroforestry to Agroindustry: Smallholder Access to Benefits From Oil Palm in Ghana and the Implications for Sustainability Certification

Cited by 24 publications

References 32 publications

Agricultural Information's Impact on the Adaptive Capacity of Ghana's Smallholder Cocoa Farmers

Agricultural Information's Impact on the Adaptive Capacity of Ghana's Smallholder Cocoa Farmers

Plotting the coloniality of conservation

Political Economy of the Oil Palm Value Chain in Ghana

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