Expanding tree-crop farming An integrated socio-spatial analysis in a transitioning mosaic landscape in Ghana

Countries in the Global South with suitable climate and land for commodity crops promote their cultivation to create jobs and boost livelihoods and incomes locally and nationally. However, the expansion of commodity crops has widespread socioeconomic and landscape structural consequences impacting rural livelihoods and landscape resilience that are often overlooked. This thesis examines how the expansion of tree crops affects the structure and multifunctionality of mosaic landscapes, how actors perceive the dynamics and effects, and what strategies they envisage to address them. It uses a mixed-method approach comprising remote sensing, interviews, a survey, and participatory mapping and scenario building. Findings show that tree-crop expansion reduced tree cover and land available for food crops and changed the structure from a mosaic to a highly segregated landscape, resulting in the reduced availability of food-crop land and landscape services such as water and non-timber forest products. Despite actors’ acknowledgement of drawbacks, they desire a future landscape dominated by tree crops because of the perceived economic benefits. The author argues that landscape multifunctionality is not an ‘either-or’ situation but requires a context-specific mix of ‘sharing’ and ‘sparing’. This calls for a deep understanding of the social-cultural, economic and environmental dimensions of tree-crop farming as provided in this thesis. Additionally, this thesis offers methodological frameworks for a spatial operationalisation of integration-segregation theory and integrated landscape approaches.