MANAGEMENT OF GHANA’S MODIFIED TAUNGYA SYSTEM: CHALLENGES AND

STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

Emmanuel Acheampong and Thomas F. G. Insaidoo

Department of Silviculture and Forest Management, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

(KNUST), Ghana

WORLD AGROFORESTRY CONGRESS 10 – 14 February 2014

New Delhi, India

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• Background

• Research objectives

• Study area

• Methods

• Results and discussions

• Conclusions

Presentation outline

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Background• Taungya - a system that combines a

stand of woody species and agricultural crops during the early years of plantation development (Nair 1985, 1991).

• Developed in Burma (now Myanmar) in the early 19th century (King 1987).

• Introduced in Ghana in the 1930s and received wider application between 1970 and 1980.

• The taungya was suspended in 1984 due to some challenges.

• Re-introduced in a revised form in 2002 as the MTS under the NFPDP.

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Background

• Aim - to restore degraded forest areas and create livelihood opportunities for forest fringe communities.

• Under the MTS, farmers are given access to degraded forest reserve areas for tree planting with integration of food crops until tree canopy closure.

• Farmers are considered co-owners of the plantations with the Forestry Commission (FC).

• Farmers are entitled to the MTS plots till the tree crops mature, instead of being excluded after three years, as was practiced under the old taungya system.

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Research Objectives

• Since its implementation in 2002 the scheme has unfolded several management problems (Boakye and Baffoe, 2006; Blay et al., 2008).

• To provide insights into the management challenges facing the MTS by adding evidence to the scarce information available thus far.

• To suggest strategies for improving the MTS.

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Study area

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Methods

• Desk study

• Household survey among MTS

farmers

• Interviews with key informants

(forestry officers, farmer leaders)

• Focus group discussions

• Field observations

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Results and discussions

Two modules of the MTS

The National MTS

• Implemented and coordinated by the FSD of the FC.

The MTS under the Community Forestry Management Project (CFMP)• Coordinated by the Forest Plantation Development Centre

(FPDC) of the Min. of lands and Nat. Res. (MLNR).

• The CFMP provided funds to pay farmers for their work on peg cutting and tree establishment and to initiate complementary income-generating projects

• The key features are the same in both schemes.9

MTS - key features and governance arrangements

• Co-management arrangement between FC and communities

• Farmers grow food crops between seedlings (1-3 yrs until tree canopy closure)

• Farmers form taungya group and elect taungya committee members (leaders)

• Duties, rights & benefits spelled out in MTS agreement10

Key features and governance arrangements

• Responsibilities: - The FC:- provides seedlings, extension, supervision - Farmers:- labour for tree planting/maintenance & fire prevention - Stool landowners:- provide secure access to land - Communities:- help in prevention of fire and theft

• Benefit-sharing agreement among key stakeholders:– The FC = 40% of tree revenues/benefits– Farmers = 40% of tree benefits; 100% of crop proceeds– Landowners = 15% of tree benefits– Forest fringe communities = 5% of tree benefits

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MTS management challenges

• Lack of income from the MTS between tree canopy closure (when growing food crops is no longer possible) and timber harvesting• Demotivates farmers to invest labour in tree farm

maintenance

• Unsigned MTS Agreements, leading to insecurity among farmers about future timber benefits• MTS participants not properly registered

• benefit-sharing agreements not documented

• Attributed to the limited financial and personnel capacity of the FC (Boakye and Baffoe, 2006).

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Management challenges

• Lack of benefit-sharing arrangement among individual farmers in taungya groups• Absence of a clear benefit-sharing mechanism for the

distribution of the 40% share in timber benefits among individual farmers.

• Existing benefit-sharing agreement applies to the MTS group as a whole.

• Adds to the insecurity about future timber benefits.• Seen as a potential source of conflict in the future.

• Untimely and irregular supply of tree seedlings leading to delays in tree planting• Seedlings raised and supplied by the FSD from outside

plantation sites 13

Management challenges

• Long distance from village to MTS plots• lack of vehicles for transporting farm

produce from the plantation sites to markets.

• walking over long distances with loads of foodstuff.

• Farmers not allowed to plant cassava in the MTS • staple crop

• per capita consumption of cassava -152 kg/head/year in 2005 (MoFA , 2010) Africa - 80 kg/capita/year (Nweke, 2004) 14

Strategies to address challenges and improve the MTS

• Find ways to generate income between canopy closure and timber harvesting– advanced payments of timber benefits (Montagnini et. al, 2005; Boni

2006).

– provision of soft loans to be paid back from 40% share in timber revenues

• Mayers and Vermeulen (2002) point at the role that banks can play in this respect.

– livelihood projects to generate income • E.g. animal rearing, seedling production, NTFP cultivation

– Incentives from PES – CDM, REDD+ (?) – E.g. Costa Rica (Montagnini et. al, 2005)

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Strategies to address challenges and improve the MTS

• Speed up the documentation processs (signing of MTS documents) – and provide farmers with copies as a guarantee to future timber

benefits.

• Design benefit-sharing arrangement at individual level– benefit-sharing plan should be based on number of trees

planted and harvested (output) by individual members.

– higher output from plots, higher benefits to individual.

– plan should be incorporated in the MTS agreement doc.16

Strategies to address challenges and improve the MTS

• Seedling production at community level for income and timely seedling supply– Local seedling production instead of

contracting outsiders • Design planting schemes that include

cassava and NTFPs (e.g. rattan, black pepper and ‘anwonomo’ (Thaumatoccocus daniellii)– The Extension Division of MOFA has a role to

play to help farmers identify appropriate ways to intercrop with cassava

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Strategies to address challenges and improve the MTS

• Governance arrangements in the MTS– Arrangements in the MTS should follow a form of pro-poor

governance • a sub-set of democratic governance,• concerned with the poor, • focuses on poverty reduction (UNDP, 2009: 7).

– Thus:– the MTS should have a more focus on poverty reduction.

E.g.• production of seedlings at the local level for income• allow farmers to cultivate cassava in the MTS

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Strategies to address challenges and improve the MTS

• Performance of the MTS is closely related to the quality of the partnership of the actors involved– co-management arrangement exclusively between the FC and MTS

farmer groups generates poorer results (Tano-Offin and Tain II reserve areas) – The national MTS.

– Co-management arrangement involving the FC, farmers, MOFA, NGOs, and donors generates better results (Yaya reserve area) –MTS under the CFMP.

– Partnerships between multiple actors allow the parties involved to achieve more than they would be capable of achieving on their own (Ros-Tonen et al. 2007, 2008; cf. Mayers and Vermeulen 2002).

– partnerships can be instrumental in enhancing community involvement in SFM.

– related to the concept of interactive governance, coined by Kooiman et al. (2005) 19

Conclusions

• The MTS addresses important societal issues: – reforestation of degraded forest areas, – employment creation, – generation of legal supplies of timber, – provision of farming land for food cropping.

• Continued commitment of both participating farmer groups and coordinating agencies is key.

• The prospects for future income from timber revenues determine to a large extent farmers’ commitment.

• Governance matters: at local level (social organisation, bylaws) and multi-scalar level (multi-sector partnerships)

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Acknowledgement

This research was funded by Tropenbos International (TBI) and was carried out under the

TBI-Ghana programme

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THANK YOU

More Information: ekachie@yahoo.com

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References

• MoFA (Ministry of Food and Agriculture) (2010). Agriculture in Ghana. Facts and Figures, Statistics, Research and Information Directorate (SRID), Accra, Ghana.

• Nair, P.K. ( 1985). Classification of agroforestry systems. Agroforestry Systems 3: 97–128.

• Nair, P.K (1991). State-of-the-art of agroforestry systems. Forest Ecology and Management 45: 5-29.

• Boakye, K.A. and Baffoe, K.A. (2006). Trends in forest ownership, forest resource tenure and institutional arrangements. Case study from Ghana; Available online: http://www.fao.org/forestry/125051d2e95c6b96016463fe58818c7e9c29d.pdf (accessed January 2011).

• Blay, D., Appiah, M., Damnyag, L., Dwomoh, F.K., Luukkanen, O. and Pappinen, A. (2008). Involving local farmers in rehabilitation of degraded tropical forests: some lessons from Ghana. Environ Dev Sustain 10, 503–518.

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References

• Ros-Tonen, M.A.F., Andel, T. van, Morsello, C., Otsuki, K., Rosendo, S. and Scholz, I. (2008). Forest-Related Partnerships in Brazilian Amazonia: There Is More to Sustainable Forest Management Than Reduced Impact Logging’. Forest Ecology and Management 256: 1482–1497.

• Ros-Tonen, M.A.F., Hombergh. H. van den and Zoomers, E.B. (2007). Partnerships for Sustainable Forest and Tree Resource Management in Latin America: The New Road towards Successful Forest Governance? Pp. 4-35 in M.A.F. Ros-Tonen (ed.): Partnerships in Sustainable Forest Resource Management: Learning from Latin America. CLAS Series. Leiden/Boston: Brill Publishers.

• United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), (2009). Pro-poor governance and the policy process: A framework. Oslo: UNDP Oslo Governance Centre.