Nikolaus Schareika

Assessing the sustainability of vegetable production practices in northern Ghana

ABSTRACT Urban vegetable production is an intensive agricultural strategy through which urban dwellers secure income and improve their livelihoods. An ethnographic study was conducted in Tamale, Northern Ghana, to understand whether vegetable gardening was a sustainable form of intensification. The study used an updated version of the Food and Agricultural Organization’s International Framework for Evaluating Sustainable Land Management. Accordingly, qualitative data were collected on the security and access to land, political acceptability and human and environmental health implications of urban patch farming. Changes between 2008 and 2014 in the spatial area of the vegetable sites were measured. Cabbage farmer incomes were quantified. The study found that urbanization has prompted an increase in the cultivation of highly profitable vegetables like cabbage. However, they are irrigated with grey and waste water while eaten raw. This, and the use of pesticides in high dosages, poses health and environmental hazards. Industrial growth has reduced the area of open space urban agriculture by 8.7% between 2008 and 2014. Farmers cope with this by cultivating on interstitial spaces and moving to periurban fringes. There, farmers develop institutional liaisons to gain access to intensification technologies and commercialize their production. This production system is dynamic but not yet sustainable.

Pest management among smallholder cabbage growers

ABSTRACT Vegetable production is practiced in urban and peri-urban settings in many countries, where agricultural lands are decreasing. Farmers need to understand how to manage pests when production is in close proximity to people, especially since they have adopted intensive agricultural practices where more synthetic chemicals are used to control pests. Other issues including climate change, rapid urbanization, limited access to resources – land, training, and technology influence pest management strategies. A mixed method was used to collect data which examined how farmer interactions with other actors and technologies have influenced management of pest infestations and profits. All farmers in Tamale intensively cultivate cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata L.) and we noted differences in profitability between farmers with, and without, formal training. There was a positive association between long-term farm experience and good pest management practices. Farmers with >10 years experience growing cabbage were more mindful of pre-harvest intervals in respect to pesticide application compared to those with less-farming experience. Farmer-to-farmer transfer was the most efficient way of disseminating agricultural information and creates an opportunity for sharing information on integrated pest management. There is a need for the creation of formal farmer–farmer training and education by government extension officers, building on informal opportunities provided by farmer-to-farmer knowledge transfer on safe handling, storage, and application of pesticides in peri-urban and urban farms.

Erratum to: Stereotypes, prejudices and exclusion of Fulani pastoralists in Ghana

The purpose of this paper is to analyze stereotypes and prejudices of Fulani pastoralists as they have become an important part of national and local community policies and discourses. We show how these attitudes have subtly led to Fulani exclusion and discrimination and structured community-pastoralist relations. Typical stereotypes and prejudices of Fulani include Fulani as armed robbers, rapists, violent and uncivilized. We argue that stereotypes, prejudices and practices of Fulani pastoralists’ exclusion go beyond the normal perceptions of them being non-citizens and a non-indigenous ethnic group in Ghana, but have been developed through social cognitive categorization. Our study found that these perceptions have resulted in Fulani pastoralists being denied settlements in communities and the use of and access to resources. Besides, stereotypes and prejudices suffered by Fulani pastoralists are constructed in the community and media discourses and have been built historically and culturally. National and local policies such as national expulsion exercises of Fulani (e.g. Operation Cow Leg), local community evictions and confiscations of Fulani-acquired lands have led to subtle discrimination against them in many spheres of Ghanaian society. The paper uses insights from primary field data of interviews and observations, as well as reference to media and news reports.