Effects of Large-Scale Land Acquisition on Livelihood Assets in the Pru East District of Ghana

Abstract

The activities of multi-national companies have affected the livelihood of smallholder farmer in the Pru East, though a lot of research work has been done on large scale land acquisition but this study focus on how it affects livelihood asset of smallholder farmers in the Pru East District. Over the past ten years, the Government of Ghana have leased out large tracts of land for investors, mainly foreign investors. Survey research approach was used for the study. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed and a sample size of 332 households was used for the study. The study used five indicators of the Livelihood Effect Index (LEI) espoused by Downing et al., (2001) to determine the effects of large-scale land acquisition on the livelihood of smallholder farming households. Large scale land acquisition has a significant positive moderate effect on the employment, healthcare and food security but, has a significant negative high effect on income levels of smallholder farming households. However, large scale land acquisition has no significant effect on the nutritional status of farming households in the Pru East district of the Bono East region. Kobre and Kadue communities with an LEI of 0.53 suggests that livelihoods of farming households in these two communities are the most effected with large scale land acquisition. The study also recommends that MMDAs must formulate by-laws to ensure that large scale land investors employ people from the host communities of the projects. Keywords: livelihood asset, large scale land acquisition, smallholder farmer, human capital asset, natural capital asset, financial capital asset, social capital asset. DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-2-08 Publication date: February 29 th 2020