By Indika Arulingam, Sarah Appiah & Deepa Joshi
National and global food systems policies increasingly emphasize youth in agriculture and aim to bring back youth in agrifood systems-based livelihoods. Our research in 2023, demonstrates how multiple factors shape the kinds of futures youth aspire to in Western and North-eastern Ghana.
A GIZ and Government of Ghana aquaculture project implemented by the Fisheries Commission of Ghana in Western Ghana provided local youth groups with resources and technical know-how for tank and pond-based aquaculture production. This was part of a flagship Government of Ghana project, launched in 2017 to boost local fish production and specifically create jobs for the youth in the aquaculture sector. In the North-eastern region of Ghana, an International Water Management Institute-led aquaculture pilot project introduced cage-based aquaculture to youth groups in four local communities. The project was a collaboration with the Fisheries Commission of Ghana and the CSIR Water Research Institute under the CGIAR Initiative on Aquatic Foods. The cage-based systems were implemented in earthen dams found across the region. These dams were built by the government and development agencies to support farming and provide water for domestic use in the dry season. The pilot project in this region leveraged on the multi-functionality of water bodies, with the aim to strengthen food security, improve income, and empower women and youth.
The Western and North-eastern regions of Ghana are two distinctive ecological and economic geographies. The two regions have contrasting development trajectories and offer quite different socio-economic opportunities for youth groups. The North-eastern region, like the rest of Northern Ghana, is marked by a higher incidence of poverty and characterized by a higher prevalence of subsistence-based agriculture. The Western region is part of the cocoa belt and cultivates other cash crops such as coconut and rubber, and therefore a more robust economy.
At the time of our research, the GIZ project in the Western Region had completed three cycles of production, while the IWMI-led project in the North-East was in its first cycle of production. Our findings are therefore also determined by different levels of familiarity with aquaculture production.
Aquaculture livelihoods as a quick hustle
In Western Ghana, there is a tendency for both female and male youth to be involved in family farms, but the youth did not view themselves as future farmers. While helping with family agricultural labor, young people also earn incomes through wage work in rubber and coconut farms in their neighborhoods. Female youth engage in petty-goods trading, tailoring and hairdressing, while male youth worked as ‘okada’ i.e. motorbike or tricycle drivers, and construction and masonry work. This type of work is considered, particularly by the male youth, as temporary to earn supplemental incomes. Their aspiration is to continue tertiary education and to move to urban areas to look for other non-farming jobs. These perceptions determine how youth approached the promotion and positioning of aquaculture as a means for attaining other futures.
Twenty-three-year-old Kofi,is studying for his undergraduate degree in Geography. On completion of his studies, he wants to work in an urban city such as Kumasi or Accra in a job related to his studies. According to him, “most (young people) engage in farming only temporarily”, to earn reasonable sums of money, which would allow them to “travel to the city to look for a job.”
Thirty-one-year-old Adwo is a teacher in a local school and sells women’s sandals as well. While she was not involved in the aquaculture project, she was trying to learn about how selling fish could supplement her earnings from the sandals business. In Ghana, labor in fisheries and aquaculture is gendered, with men involved in production and capture, and the women in the processing and selling of fish. The project had tried to break this stereotype, facilitating women in production activities. But Adwo would not do that. “As I am a lady, I will prefer the selling aspect. I love that aspect. I used to join and observe when they are doing it (selling the fish).” Nonetheless like Kofi, Adwo too wanted to complete her tertiary education and move into an “office job”. Her job as a teacher, her sandals business and her interest in selling fish are all temporary.
Aquaculture as a part of long-term futures in farming
By contrast, young people in the North-eastern region have limited possibilities of alternative work opportunities beyond agriculture. Male youth here consider themselves as [future] owners of their parent’s farmlands. Here, farming activities are usually rain fed, and most young men and some women travel to cities in the south of Ghana to explore income-earning opportunities in the dry seasons. The women who stay back cultivate vegetables in small plots of land irrigated by water from the dam.
Twenty-four-year-old Ibrahim had recently completed his undergraduate degree and was doing the mandatory national military service. During his vacations, he worked on the family plot owned by his father and used his share of the income for his studies. He had also seasonally migrated and worked in Ejura, a city in the Ashanti region (South of Ghana) as an agricultural wage laborer to gather money to help with his education. After graduating, even if he managed to secure a job in the public sector, he expected to continue to be a farmer. “Here farming is our work, and we can’t depart from that. If you do any other work and [aren’t involved] in farming, it won’t help…you can’t take care of your family.” He was familiar with aquaculture production through his education. Demand for fish is high the region, as fish is mostly imported from the south. Ibrahim was exploring aquaculture as a potential business opportunity alongside farming.
A high dependence on agriculture by households in the region, limited alternatives beyond agriculture, and greater incidences of poverty, all determine that young people here were more likely to see their current and future identities connected to agriculture. Against this reality, they considered aquaculture as a livelihood alternative they could practice alongside farming, viewing it as a more longer-term alternative than the young women and men from the Western Region.
Our study shows that local economies, geographies, and gender combine to determine how young people view livelihoods in agrifood systems, and in challenging local contexts, as in North-eastern Ghana water security will determine the outcomes of agrarian livelihoods. For the young people in the Western and North-eastern Regions, this potentially means the difference between whether they see aquaculture as a means of quick capital accumulation, or as part of more longer-term futures.