Sustainability of family farming and rural youth migration in Tuasa community of the upper west region of Ghana

Presently family faming stands at a defining moment in most developing countries, especially in Africa. At the state level most policy measures have environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Family farming faces mounting pressure to offer nutritious, affordable, and sufficient food for fast-growing populations alongside environmental degradation and drastic change in climatic conditions. Simultaneously family faming in the world’s rural areas is declining as a result of the shift to non-farming activities in a phenomenon termed as de-agrarianization’ of rural places. The process of ‘de-agrarianization’ is driven by several factors including adverse climatic conditions, inadequate market, lack of access to ready markets and rural-urban youth migration. Some studies also hypothesize and provide evidence that the decline in family farming is resulting into the tendency of youth moving from the villages to urban areas in search of non-farming income generation opportunities. The increasing rural-urban migration tends to be because supposed unattractiveness of family farming in rural areas as it generates low income relative to other economic activities. The interventions developed to strengthen family farming and therefore reduce rural-urban youth migration seem to be gaining much progress as indicated by growing tendency of youth turning away from farming and moving to urban areas, to seek for non-farming income generating activities. This study employs a qualitative research design to investigate the push and pull factors influencing the youth to turn away family farming and migrate. It also explores how rural-urban youth migration is affecting the sustainability of family farming and the livelihood approaches of farming households of Tuasa Community. The study sought to examine and understand the situation of peasant farmers in the Tuasa community. Employing the concept of political economy, the study found that government-initiated programmes such as planting for food and jobs and rearing for food and jobs (PFJ and RFJ) did not help keep the youth in the Tuasa community. More so, political interference in social intervention programmes affected the proper functioning of these programmes. The insights of the sustainable rural livelihood approach to find out the alternative livelihood measures farm families are adopting showed that, most farm families have shifted to non-farming activities like charcoal burning, shea picking and firewood gathering as their alternative source to cope with the youth migration phenomena. The neo-classical migration theory which also sought to examine the push and pull factors causing migration revealed how most pull factors are ix driven by remittances from migrant youth, the city life, better jobs etc. It also revealed how the push factors were alarming as poverty, lack of access to land to farm, poor farming methods that yield very low produce, lack of better jobs to support farming activities, and weak political economy drive the problem. Findings from the study also showed the efforts been made by a few NGOs in dealing with the problem in the Tuasa community.