Perfecting Rural Land Title for Wealth Creation and Sustainable Development

Perfecting land title refers to the process of securing tenure on land. It refers to the assurance that the land one holds for an agreed period of time and purpose is certain. It requires a level of legitimacy. It is on record that agriculture, forestry and mining sectors constitute about 70% of Ghana’s gross domestic product. However, the lack of several large-scale plantations in Ghana can be partly attributed to the land tenure system. Land rights in rural communities are not secured in that the lands are not themselves well defined and rights are not documented. The study used modern survey methods to clearly map out farms in a systematic manner for farmers under a cooperative for rubber plantation development. The rights of tenant farmers and landholders are clearly and legally documented and registered into the formal land administration system. The spatial and attribute data are incorporated into a Geographic Information System (GIS) that serves as tool for data management on the farmers. The pilot study was successful in improving not only tenure security and data access, but also access to funding by participating farmers.