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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Looking Up to the Victims: Land Scarcity and Women's Role in Food Provisioning in the Ghana-Togo Border Area
Author:Fred-Mensah, Ben K.ISNI
Year:2003
Periodical:Research Review (ISSN 0855-4412)
Volume:19
Issue:2
Pages:35-48
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:Ghana
Togo
West Africa
Subjects:women farmers
customary law
land law
food policy
cocoa
Cultural Roles
Sex Roles
Status of Women
Religion and Witchcraft
Development and Technology
gender
women
land tenure
Food relief
Women in economic development
food supply
Abstract:The author examines the apparently contradictory status of women in most of Ghana's agrarian communities. Basing himself predominantly on empirical material from among the Buem of the border area between Ghana and Togo, he shows that, even though women in this area have played little role in the transfer of their ancestral land to migrant farmers and, today, constitute a negligible proportion of cash crop farm owners, either as wives or heads of single-parent households they face the inescapable responsibility of dealing with the increasing household food insecurity that has resulted from land scarcity. Introduced in the Ghana-Togo border area at the turn of the 20th century, the production of cocoa has engendered massive migration into the area. As a perennial export crop, cocoa profoundly altered the indigenous land rights system, with subsequent negative impacts on food security. The author suggests that one potentially viable option for improving the food security situation for the poor households in the area is by enabling them to improve their income-earning capabilities by developing policies that would change occupational structure in the area. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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