Conflict actors influence the dynamics of agropastoral policies to accommodate their preferences and expectations in Ghana

Abstract

In many sub-Saharan African countries, numerous studies ascribe biases and inconsistencies in agropastoral policies to the perennial farmer–herder conflicts. However, insights into the assumptions underlying agropastoral policies and the strategies that actors involved in the conflict use to influence these policies are limited in countries with high incidence of such conflicts. We engaged the ‘act of governmentality’ (ways of governing) to examine how agropastoral policies in Ghana from colonial to contemporary times have influenced farmer–herder conflicts, and examined the strategies used by key conflict actors to influence the agropastoral policy process. Data were collected through documentary review, interviews, focus group discussions and facilitated workshops with a range of conflict actors such as farmers, pastoralists, chiefs, farmer and herder associations, and public officials. Our analyses indicated that whereas the colonial administration facilitated cattle ranching among natives of the Gold Coast, the postcolonial administration changed the approach by adopting a seemingly hostile strategy that largely neglected pastoralism for almost five decades. The state now favours sedentarisation, an approach that has been rebuffed by many farmers, farming communities, and some pastoralists. Policy inconsistencies have created tensions and a dynamic struggle across spatial scales, with each actor coalition employing diverse strategies to influence agropastoral policies to accommodate their preferences and expectations. The outcome of each policy cycle became an input for further contestation in a resource-depleting process that failed to produce equitable outcomes. Achieving a sustainable negotiated solution requires moving beyond the current segmentation towards well-structured and inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue that allows for proper consideration of all actors’ concerns.