Gender Dimensions of Youth Access to Agricultural Land Under Customary Tenure System in the Techiman Traditional Area of Ghana

Abstract

This study investigates youth access to agricultural land under the customary land tenure regime in Ghana focusing on gender dimensions. Using the Techiman Traditional Area as a case study, the study applied multiple sampling techniques in a multi-stage sampling process to select the study communities and the respondents. A total sample of 455 youth respondents comprising 299 males and 156 females were covered in 20 communities. The results from the study revealed that majority of the youth, especially female, accessed agricultural land under non-market mechanisms such as licence, gift and inheritance; while predominantly male youth also accessed land under market mechanisms such as rentals and sharecropping. Both male and female youth held small land sizes. The underlying challenges facing both male and female youth were in two-fold: demand-related such as high cost of accessing land, competition from residential developers and wealthy adult farmers among others, and supply-related such as unwillingness of the elders to release land, scarce productive family land, land grants to outsiders among others. There is the need to ensure a well-functioning land market coupled with credit support system to enable both male and female youth access land. The study recommends further research into youth access to agricultural land under the main customary tenure regimes across the country as a means of formulating an evidence-based youth agricultural land access policy in Ghana.