In addition, farmers diversified income sources by engaging in alternative livelihood activities to cope with crop failure. The results also revealed that in the long run, it was mainly cost but not access which prevented respondents from using agricultural inputs to increase production. To sustain and improve the current level of production, respondents utilized either mixed cropping or shifting cultivation. The results show that variables like gender, age, and educational status had little influence on perception of climate change. Other stakeholders consulted include representatives of Ghana Metrological Agency (GMA), Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Environmental Protection Agency, District Assemblies and some environmental NGOs. Within these communities, only household heads primarily engaged in farming participated in the interviews. Six communities were selected in the Brong Ahafo Region. A mixed method approach was used which allowed a combination of interviews and personal observations supported with literature review. This study sought to assess perception of communities about climate change and to explore changes in farming systems that have sustained food crop production in the study areas.

Undoubtedly, climate change has a negative effect on agricultural production and this is increasingly escalating in vulnerable regions like Ghana where agric is not mechanised to guarantee an all year round harvest. Greater dialogue between genders and generations may help to tackle unequal power relations and lead to shared decision-making processes that build the resilience of rural communities. The research provides important insights into gendered and generational power relations regarding land access, property rights and intra-household decision-making processes. Intergenerational tensions emerged when young people felt that their parents and elders were neglecting their views and concerns. The tendency for land, cash crops and income to be controlled by men, despite women's and young people's significant labour contributions to family farms, and for women to rely on food crop production for their main source of income and for household food security, means that women and girls are more likely to lose out when cashew plantations are expanded to the detriment of land for food crops. As a tree crop, cashew was regarded as an individual man's property to be passed on to his wife and children rather than to extended family members, which differed from the communal land tenure arrangements governing food crop cultivation. This article explores everyday, less visible, gendered and generational struggles over family farms in West Africa, based on qualitative, participatory research in a rural community that is becoming increasingly integrated into the global capitalist system. The expansion of cashew plantations was leading to pressure on the remaining family lands available for food crop production, which community members feared could potentially compromise the food security of rural communities and the land inheritance of future generations.Īgricultural land use in much of Brong-Ahafo region, Ghana has been shifting from the production of food crops towards increased cashew nut cultivation in recent years. Cashew farmers however were subject to price fluctuations in the value of Raw Cashew Nuts (RCN) due to unequal power relations with intermediaries and export buyer companies and global markets, in addition to other vulnerabilities that constrained the quality and quantity of cashew and food crops they could produce. Global demand for cashew is projected to continue to grow rapidly in the immediate future and cashew-growing areas of Ghana are well placed to respond to this demand.

Based on qualitative, participatory research with a total of 60 participants, the research found that increased cashew production had led to improvements in living standards for many farmers and their children over recent years. This research aimed to investigate the implications of changing agricultural land use from food production towards increased cashew cultivation for food security and poverty alleviation in Jaman North District, Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana.

Pruning cashew trees