Rice

Compared to its neighbours, Ghana gets good press. It’s widely praised for its solid economic growth, stable democracy and rapidly developing infrastructure. As Barack Obama said on his recent visit, ‘Ghana continues to be a good-news story’.

Rice

Living in the capital, and sticking mainly to the well-polished tourist trails, it’s easy to get an overwhelmingly positive view of this friendly country. But delve a little deeper and the familiar African themes of poverty, injustice and inequality persist.

Land acquisitions in Africa have rightly attracted considerable controversy. In many countries, land is taken away from local people and sold or leased to investors from rich countries who speculate on it on global markets; or to foreign companies who use African land to grow food for their own populations, or even biofuels for their cars.

Prairie Volta Rice Ltd.

I travelled to Mafi Dove district, on the south side of the Volta River, to research an article about a large land acquisition project for rice production. Quaysie, a friend who comes from the Volta region, offered to drive and translate from Ewe, the local language.

Prairie Volta Rice Ltd, the US-backed company behind the project, leases around 3,000 hectares near the river, which is used to irrigate the rice. But I had read that the crop is not for exporting; rather, it is for sale on the local market, in an effort to reduce the country’s massive dependence on imports (which cost around $450million a year). This sounds more positive than schemes; I tried to keep an open mind as we arrived at their office and processing plant in Aveyime.

Richard, the manager showed us around and openly talked about the controversial start to the project. The company rents the land from the Ghanaian government, who ‘acquired’ the land in the 1970s without paying local landowners any compensation – still a source of much anger in the villages surrounding the rice farm.

The company’s position is that compensation is not their responsibility; Richard was keen to talk instead about how they were donating computers and equipment to nearby schools and hospitals. And how they were employing local people and providing farming machinery for local use at reduced rates. Maybe this land scheme was being done differently; it was hard not to be impressed.

Quaysie with the rice farmers

Until we met the rice farmers who work for the company: they told a very different story. No pay for two months. No fuel to power the shiny tractors that stood idle in the fields. I asked them about the donations made to local schools and hospitals: “That is a lie. It is not happening.”

They suggested we went to meet the land-owning villagers, so we drove along the dirt road to the village of Bakpa-Kebenu. As we pulled up, I was surprised to see the villagers all sat in a circle on plastic chairs. 

“Do they always sit about like this?” I asked Quaysie.

“No, the farmers called ahead that we were coming,” he replied. “They have called a village meeting.”

Mobile phones really do reach every corner of the continent; I blushed at my patronising ignorance.

Village meeting

With Quaysie translating, the village chief told me the catalogue of woes his people have endured. There has been government corruption – only those who voted for the incumbent party got compensation for their land; the rest got nothing. Many subsistence farmers from his village have had their crops damaged by the chemicals the company sprays by plane on the rice fields. And they have little way of fighting back. “When the government is involved, who do we complain to?”

 

We spent half an hour in the village, listening to their stories and the way they had been treated. The circle of faces all focused on me, unsmiling, almost accusing. And as I got up to say goodbye, the chief asked: what would I do to help? I apologetically promised to deliver copies of the magazine when the article was published, knowing it would have little if any impact.

But as we left, the stern expressions gave way instantly to warm smiles, waves and an insistence on photos with the chief and the elders. Despite the hardships faced and my nosing about, looking for a story rather than a way to help, the people were as friendly as Ghanaians always are to strangers.

Meeting the chief

Having chased some stray chickens out from under the car, we set off along the road once more. We passed the rice farmers again, still sat with nothing to do. Alongside them sat the armed soldier who spends each day with there, chatting and smoking. He’s there to make sure no one steals the rice from the fields – a clear example of the warped priorities of the rice company. As one of the farmers said: “They pay him to guard the rice; why can’t they just pay us for our land?”

Butre

Early on Saturday morning, Sarah knocked at on door of our bungalow at Fanta’s Folly. Her justification for the disturbance was short and to the point: “They’ve got a turtle!”

During the night, villagers from Butre had found an Olive Ridley turtle on the beach and brought it to the lodge. As part of a turtle conservation scheme on Butre beach, the owners of Fanta’s Folly and two other lodges pay local people 30 cedis for any turtles they find, as an incentive not to eat them.

As we hurried down to the beach, Sarah explained they were keeping the creature for us to see. And there she was, turned on to her back to prevent her from escaping. I felt a pang of guilt, partly that they had kept her in that position just so I could see her, and partly because I was glad they had done so. Once flipped upright, she waddled awkwardly down the sand and as soon as she reached the water she swam gracefully away, disappearing from view with the first wave.

Unfortunately the people who found her had brought her to the lodge before she had laid her eggs. It would be easy to criticise this fledgling conservation scheme; eagerness to get a reward prevents several turtles from nesting, and nests are dug up and relocated to the lodge (to stop people collecting the eggs).

But the alternative would be worse, as turtles and their eggs are considered a good meal in Ghana. Over time, local people are learning how to treat the animals and perhaps one day the eggs can also be left. The success of the similar scheme at Akwidaa shows that progress happens quickly when well managed. The Olive Ridley we saw will probably return in a couple of days to nest, and hopefully next time she won’t be spotted.

The turtle proved to be the main activity on the first day at Fanta’s Folly, a resort near Asemkow that is fully geared to relaxation. No music, no traffic, no healthy activities, just the sound of the waves and delicious French-Nigerian food prepared by the owners. A flock of black-rumped waxbills pecking for seeds was about as crazy as the morning got as we made the most of our new hammock.

But on Sunday afternoon the sound of singing in Fante drifted over from along the beach. The villagers of Butre were helping to bring in the catch from the nets set out early that morning. Once hauled in, the myriad species flapped their last breaths in the bulging net – barracuda, snapper, lobster, skate, dory and jellyfish were among the ones I recognised. Enough for a live action version of ‘Finding Nemo’, or at least a tasty chowder.

As the men carried the nets back to Butre, the women shared out the catch. Agnes, a lady living in Butre explained that she and many others had moved to the coast from the Volta region, as the livelihood from fishing better than from farming. Clearly the incomers have settled well; she spoke Fante and the whole community seemed involved in the activity, with everyone getting their reward.

As the fish were being shared out, Robert bought five barracudas for 26 cedi – the price of two in Accra – and other tourists also went away with the freshest fish they are likely to ever buy. Children sat with buckets, squabbling for the tiniest specimens that were discarded into the sand (they were used for games rather than for eating), while vultures, crows and hawks watched from a safe distance, ready to clean up once the humans had left. A brief burst of activity in one of Ghana’s sleepiest resorts.