Manufacturing Scarcity: Understanding the Causes of Conflicts Between Farmers and Herders in Asante Akim North Municipality of Ghana

Farmer-herder conflicts are widespread in many parts of Africa. Scholars disagree on their causes. One strand associates conflict with absolute scarcities caused by for example population growth and climate change. Other scholars emphasize politically established scarcities: scarcities caused by policies, legislation, and development programs. This paper examines the causes of farmer-herder conflict in the case of Asante Akim North Municipality of Ghana; an area that has suffered from severe conflicts for the past two decades. The study relies on documentary materials and interviews with 53 respondents representing all main agents with a stake in the conflict. The paper argues that absolute scarcity (population growth and climate change) may play a role in conflict, but the key driver of conflict is political. The paper shows how the traditional authorities have allocated land to outside cattle owners without effective institutions to guide cattle herding. This has created conflicts between traditional farming and new herding interests. The paper contributes to the literature on farmer-herder conflict and political scarcity by presenting a case where scarcity is not produced by state-led policies and interventions at large-scale but by local-level traditional authorities and small-scale enclosures.