The Adaptability of African Communal Land Tenure to Economic Opportunity: The Example of Land Acquisition for Oil Palm Farming in Ghana

Gyasi, Edwin A.

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Title:	The Adaptability of African Communal Land Tenure to Economic Opportunity: The Example of Land Acquisition for Oil Palm Farming in Ghana
Author:	Gyasi, Edwin A.
Year:	1994
Periodical:	Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:	64
Issue:	3
Pages:	391-405
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ghana
Subjects:	customary law land law palm kernels Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1160788
Abstract:	There is a school of thought which sees the African communal system of landownership as an inherently conservative arrangement which does not adapt or adapts slowly to economic opportunity and, therefore, acts as a constraint on development. However, this view is not borne out by the performance of the Ghanaian system as assessed on the basis of historical evidence and the findings of a survey carried out in 1989-1990 in the Kade, Twifo Praso and Pretsea-Adum Banso areas in the heart of Ghana's oil palm belt. In the 19th century, when there was a substantial increase in the demand for land for oil palm farming, the communal system responded with land sales, tenancy and other temporary transfers to strangers. This response was repeated in subsequent periods characterized by greater demand for land. In the post-1970 period, during a second oil palm boom, the system appeared to respond to the renewed demand for land by temporary transfer arrangements to the almost total exclusion of outright sale, apparently to protect the interests of the communal owners. However, the system continues to be characterized by the insecurity of the tenure granted, while there are signs that the number of inequitable tenancies is on the increase. These problems might be minimized by greater enforcement of the Land Title Registration Law, introduced in 1986. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French.