Land dispossessions and water appropriations: Political ecology of land and water grabs in Ghana

Recent land grabs in Sub-Saharan Africa are influenced by both land availability and access to water resources beyond seasonal rains. However, much of the literature has treated land grabs and their attendant water resource appropriations as separate phenomena until recently. This paper examines the complex interplay of land grabs and surface water appropriations in large-scale plantation agriculture in two agro-ecological zones in Ghana. Using mixed methods (actor interviews, focus groups, and smallholder farmer surveys), three case studies, and theoretical insights from political ecology and the hydrosocial cycle, it explores the local conditions, actor interests, motivations, and power relations; decision making; and institutional lapses that enable land grabs to go in tandem with water resource appropriations. The results show that although land and water grabs were intricately intertwined, investor negotiations for land rarely included water use rights. Motivated by the notion of abundant, unused water, investors carefully negotiated access to water for irrigation, including offering social benefits in exchange for unrestricted water use. Uneducated traditional leaders were mostly oblivious to national legislation and institutional arrangements for land and water use and sometimes unknowingly sanctioned unlimited water use by investors. Farmers were more concerned about land dispossessions and agrochemical threats to water quality, not water rights abuse. The findings expose often-overlooked forms of water appropriations driven by land grabs and highlight their hydrosocial ramifications in the drought-prone savanna belt of Ghana.