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Family Values, Land Sales and Agricultural Commodification in South-Eastern Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Kojo Sebastian Amanor
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Abstract

It is argued that land shortage and the decline of new frontier areas results in increasing conflicts over rights to land and to labour. This constrains land sales and agricultural land becomes increasingly transferred though sharecropping and the commodification of user rights in land, rather than through the evolution of clearly defined land markets. Smallholder agriculture increasingly becomes an individual undertaking, in which labour is hired, and rights to land are acquired rather than allocated within the family. Agricultural relations of production become increasingly commodified and the moral economy of the family is undermined and increasingly socially differentiated. The article traces historically the emergence of these production relations in south-east Ghana.

L'article soutient que le manque de terre et la raréfaction des nouvelles terres cultivables génèrent des conflits en matière de droit à la terre et de droit au travail. Cette situation restreint les ventes de terres, et le transfert de terrains agricoles se fait de plus en plus souvent par le biais du métayage et de la marchandisation des droits d'utilisation des terres, plutôt qu'à travers l'évolution de marchés fonciers clairement définis. Les petites exploitations sont de plus en plus nombreuses à prendre la forme d'entreprises individuelles qui emploient des ouvriers et acquièrent le droit à la terre (autrefois octroyé au sein de la famille). Les relations de production dans l'agriculture sont de plus en plus marchandisées et l'économie morale de la famille est fragilisée et de plus en plus marquée par une différenciation sociale. L'article retrace l'historique de l'émergence de ces relations de production dans le Sud-Est du Ghana.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 80 , Special Issue 1: Interpreting Land Markets in Africa , February 2010 , pp. 104 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2010

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