Cocoa eats the food: expansion of cocoa into food croplands in the Juabeso District, Ghana

There is evidence that cocoa is expanding into food croplands in cocoa-producing landscapes in Ghana. This calls for effective monitoring to inform policy and interventions in these landscapes to minimise the possible adverse effects of cropland area loss on food self-sufficiency. This study explored how farmers shift land use from food crops to cocoa and the underlying factors influencing the shift. Land cover maps for the years 1986, 1999 and 2017 were analysed to detect cropland loss to cocoa. The views of 407 cocoa farmers in the Juabeso District were sampled using questionnaires. Focus group discussions were used as a qualitative data collection approach to validate the information generated through the land cover mapping and farmers' survey and provide additional information to explain the data. The factors that drive farmers to convert croplands to cocoa farms were analysed using binary logistic regression. Results showed that croplands experienced a decline from 57.57 km2 to 52.62 km2 between 1986 and 1999, then to 28.62 km2 in 2017 at the expense of cocoa. Sustainable financial security (56.78%), unavailability of land for cocoa farming (25.15%); societal norms (3.75%); and prevention of land tenure conflict (2.75%) were the main reasons for the conversions. Farming experience and land tenure were the key socio-economic variables that influenced farmers' decisions to convert. The study's findings provide insights on the need to engage farmers, government and other actors to address farmers' quest to maximise income from cocoa farming through expansion and related land insecurity concerns without fully conceptualising future implications for food self-sufficiency in the landscape. The study recommends that land sparing for crop cultivation or cocoa agroforestry be pursued in a manner that will aid an easy and compatible combination of food crops in cocoa farms at all stages of maturity. The Government of Ghana’s flagship policy, “planting for food and jobs” should also intensify interventions to cultivate food crops and raise awareness on the implications of the conversions on livelihood and food self-sufficiency implications.