The alarming surge of illegal mining in Bono Region is posing a threat to the sustainability of cashew production and livelihoods of many farmers.
Illegal miners, including nationals from China, have invaded key cashew production areas in Wenchi municipality and Banda district. Their activities are causing significant destruction to cashew farms, water-bodies and agricultural lands.
Communities such as Branam, Amponsakrom and Atuna in the Wenchi municipality, alongside Bandaboase, Surubokrom, Nipanikrom in the Banda district, are under siege.
The unscrupulous gold miners operate with alarming impunity, which directly threatens the primary income source for local cashew residents including farmers and aggregators. The armed illegal miners threaten farmers, prompting them to reluctantly lease their cashew farms for galamsey operations.
The crisis mirrors trends in cocoa-producing regions such as Ashanti, Eastern, Western-North and Western.
Increasingly, some cocoa farmers in these areas are yielding to pressure and leasing their farms to illegal miners – contributing to the decline in Ghana’s cocoa production and endangering the industry’s sustainability.
Bono Region is a key player in the country’s cashew production. However, farmers in the region, like their peers in other cashew-producing areas of the country, currently face significant challenges.
These challenges include perennial bush-burning, limited access to financing for farm maintenance, skyrocketing costs of inputs and labour and price fluctuations.
It is feared that if the illegal mining activities are not curbed farmers could face greater hardships, threatening their livelihoods and the region’s agricultural output.
Ghana is ranked among the world’s top producers and exporters of cashew nuts, a feat bolstered by its high-quality raw cashew nuts (RCNs). According to data from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), the country currently produces approximately 200,000 metric tonnes of RCNs.
The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) reports that cashew nut exports generated over US$347million in 2023.
Mr. Joseph Alexander Bonsu, a representative of cashew farmers on the Tree Crops Development Authority (TCDA) board, expressed deep concern about the extensive destruction of cashew farms in affected communities over the past year.
He highlighted a troubling trend in which young people of the affected areas increasingly choose illegal mining over cashew farming or working as farmhands.
Indeed, government and stakeholders have to take decisive measures against illegal mining or our very livelihoods will be affected.
