Editorial of the Daily Searchlight on 15th of January, 2024
The issue of farmers clashing with cattle herdsmen is not a new thing. It is a phenomenon that has been going on for years. With Fulani herdsmen trooping south in search of grazing grounds, farmers are beginning to feel more and more encroached upon and pressed in many parts of Ghana. This has led to clashes between the two interests.
The latest such incident was at KpareKpare in the Oti region.
The Ghana News Agency (GNA) on January 7, 2024, reported that some irate youth at KpareKpare, a farming community in the Krachi East Municipality of the Oti Region, chased out nomadic herdsmen, who fled Adaklu in the Volta Region to seek refuge in the community.
The youth also burnt the houses of some herders, who had lived in the KpareKpare Electoral Area for many years, for attempting to offer their compatriots a place to stay.
A Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Mr Samuel Winful, and his officers, returning to Accra from a mission in the Oti Region, chanced upon the melee and intervened to calm tensions.
A reinforcement from the municipal capital escorted the migrants to the Police Divisional Headquarters to avoid escalation of the attacks.
Sources told the Ghana News Agency that some cattle had been let loose, fleeing to safer grounds under nobody’s control, while the natives, who had their cows with those herders, were counting their losses.
Mr Abdul Rahman Hallow, a Deputy National Youth leader of Tabitha Pulaaku International, a non-governmental organisation, on behalf of the Fulani herdsmen, expressed concern over the constant attacks on the herders as they carried out their normal activities in the area, and called on the security agencies to go to their aid.
Mr Bernard Aborkugya Mensah, the Krachi East Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Mohammed Tanko, the Divisional Police Commander, National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), and some police officers visited the scene and confirmed seeing the burnt houses and carcasses of the cattle.
The Daily Searchlight says;
We have stated on this page on several previous occasions that both the agricultural produce of the farmers, and the cattle of the herdsmen, contribute to the gross domestic product (GDP) figures of Ghana.
The two products also contribute to agriculture, as well as the health of Ghanaians generally. Added together, they constitute a single and very beneficial good.
It therefore does not make any kind of sense that government would continue to sit idle by, as these interests continue to clash.
The problem, we believe, has to do with the fact that farm lands are often invaded by the cattle. We believe that the solution is in government identifying likely land in all the regions of Ghana, which can serve as ranches. Secondly, we should educate the cattle herdsmen to register with the district assemblies to be allocated land, at cost, which can be leased to use as cattle pens. If this plan is followed, it would lead to a viable cattle industry.
Third, we should encourage grass/fodder/hay farming in Ghana, first, to serve as feed for the proposed cattle industry, and second, to ensure that the meat produced is of the standard for human consumption.
Fourth, there should be a concerted effort to engage the cattle herdsmen, that in Ghana, it is unlawful to let loose roaming animals, and that the State would exact a price on those who engage in this act. Roaming cattle should be arrested and only released upon the payment of a fine.
It should be a concerted effort and policy, led by the Ministries of Agriculture, Local Government, and Lands, and Interior.
Finally, we believe that it is time those who we have given political power, who begged us to give them political power, lived up to the task and started finding realistic solutions to the nation’s problems.
