ABSTRACT
In southern Ghana, or more precisely in southern Akim Abuakwa, 1 there are three distinct types of cocoa farmer. There is the ‘patrilineal stranger-farmer’ who, typically, bought his land in company with a group of, mainly unrelated, fellow-farmers; there is the ‘matrilineal stranger-farmer’ who bought a family land for his own use and for the use of his matrilineage; and there is the native or citizen farmer, who lives in his native town, exerting his right to farm in the locality. Measured in terms of the farm area controlled, the importance of each of the first two types far exceeds that of the third. Not all migrant farmers fall into the first or second groups – there are, for example, some ‘patrilineal farmers’ who prefer to buy land individually, not in companies. Also the distinction between the first and second type is sometimes not clear. But in most areas of southern Akim Abuakwa the classification holds good generally.
