Arable and forest land user rent in a peri-urban district, Ghana

Land-use policies meant to mitigate deforestation activities in Ghana will have to consider the heterogeneity of the drivers of arable and forest land degradation. This would help avoid the one-size fits all approach to solving this problem. The urgency for this realisation is premised on the recent increasing monetary incentive to convert arable and forest land to other land uses in peri-urban Ghana. This study hypothesised that there is no significant relationship between land rent and the conversion probability from arable and forest land to other land uses such as commercial, industrial and residential land uses in Bosomtwe, a peri-urban district in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Four-hundred and one usufruct or land-owning households and individual landowners participated through a three-stage sampling procedure. The results indicated a significant relationship between higher land rent and conversion probability from arable land to other land uses such as commercial, industrial and residential land uses. Specifically, receiving land rent above GH400 (OR = 1.979) predicted the outcome variable in all three models. Moreover, being a female (OR = 0.612), ageing: 56 and 65 (OR = 2.158) and 76 and above (OR = 11.781), traders/food vendors (OR = 0.423) and widows (OR = 2.050) had some odds of predicting the outcome variable. The study recommends a reformation of government land use conversion policies and decisions in collaboration with landowners, to include parameters which assess the effect and benefits of land conversion decisions on biodiversity before leasing out land rights.