Abstract
The sustainability of intensive land use that was recently introduced to southwestern Ghana is discussed, based on field observations and interviews within a forestry project. Cocoa, a major crop in Ghana, was traditionally cultivated under natural shade trees, forming a forest-like landscape. However, due to land shortage and the introduction of modern farming systems, these shade trees now tend to be removed from the cocoa farms, leaving a high-input full-sun farming system, which is less sustainable. Moreover, a recent trend toward tree plantations is growing especially in areas damaged by wildfires. While this will increase the timber resources and improve farmers’ livelihoods in some cases, the negative impacts include a decrease in biodiversity and an increase in land conflicts. To secure the sustainability of land use, forest resources should be more integrated into farming systems. The government should strengthen the extension services and improve administrative regulations. At the field level, the planting of shade trees and small-scale plantations by farmers should be promoted, and the land tenure issues resulting from tree plantations should be monitored.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record, shown for indexing and research. Copyright remains with the authors or the publisher. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
The high-input full-sun cocoa farming system is less sustainable.
- Taxon
- cocoa
Theobroma cacaot0 - Outcome
- less sustainablee0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“leaving a high-input full-sun farming system, which is less sustainable”
t0“full-sun cocoa farming system”
Claim · model-written summary
Tree plantations will increase timber resources.
Verbatim
e0“this will increase the timber resources”
t0“tree plantations”
Claim · model-written summary
Tree plantations have the negative impact of a decrease in biodiversity.
Verbatim
e0“the negative impacts include a decrease in biodiversity”
t0“tree plantations”
Claim · model-written summary
Tree plantations have the negative impact of an increase in land conflicts.
Verbatim
e0“an increase in land conflicts”
t0“tree plantations”
Claim · model-written summary
Farmers should be encouraged to plant shade trees and small-scale plantations.
Verbatim
e0“the planting of shade trees and small-scale plantations by farmers should be promoted”
Claim · model-written summary
Forest resources should be more integrated into farming systems.
Verbatim
e0“forest resources should be more integrated into farming systems”