Land Dispossessions And Water Appropriations: Political Ecology Of Land And Water Grabs In Ghana

Recent land grabs in Sub-Saharan Africa are influenced by not only land availability but also access to water resources beyond seasonal rains. However, much of literature decouples land grabs from water resource appropriations, treating the two as separate phenomena. This paper examines the complex interplay of land grabs and water appropriations in large-scale plantation agriculture in Ghana. Using mixed methods (actor interviews, focus groups, and smallholder farmer surveys), three case studies, and theoretical insights from political ecology and the hydro- social cycle, it explores the local conditions, actor interests, motivations and power relations; decision making; and institutional lapses that enable water appropriations to go in tandem with land grabs. The results show that although land and water grabs were intricately intertwined, negotiations rarely addressed water use rights. Investors were motivated by the notion of abundant, unused water, and they carefully negotiated access to water, including offering social benefits to communities in exchange for unrestrictive water use. Traditional leaders were mostly oblivious to national legislation and institutional arrangements for land and water use and sometimes unknowingly sanctioned unlimited water appropriations by investors. Farmers were more concerned about land dispossessions than water appropriations, and their concerns on investor water use centred more on water quality decline from agrochemicals, not water-rights abuse. The paper ultimately bridges the land and water grabs literature by exposing often- overlooked forms of water appropriations enabled by land grabs and highlighting potential hydro-social ramifications of water grabs from climate-induced drought in the savannah belt of Ghana.