A Return To The Land

Photography: Ekow Dawson

After a five and a half hour drive from Accra to Akpafu Odomi, I was in the Oti region of Ghana to meet Madam Janet, a rice and cocoa farmer I connected with in December 2019 during the local campaign for “Buy Ghana Rice”.

The vegetation in Oti region is diverse, dense, and rich. The region has coastal strands, mangrove swamps, woodland savannah, savannah grassland, and deciduous forest. This region is a storehouse of all the foods grown in other regions. There is cocoa, rice, pawpaw, coconuts, plantain, cassava, and baobab.

Madam Janet talked about why she left Accra to move back to her town, Akpafu Odomi. She said, she was drawn to the opportunities in growing food. She was compelled to work with and support women farmers in her community.

Small scale farmers feed the world, over 70% of food we eat come from their hands. How often do we stop to think about who really feeds us? Many small scale farmers use farming methods that are less resource oriented, less investment intensive, and are most likely to grow food in harmony with the principles of nature. They are likely to grow in their communities, to grow food that sustains their environment, and grow foods that nourishes their community.

The devastating impact of the industrial agriculture on our land, forest, and water is evident. The results are seen in extreme weather conditions, fire ravage forests, ecosystems, and destroyed communities. Industrial agriculture is enabled by powerful corporate interests and human greed.

Capitalism, which is the culprit of our current food system, is a worldview based on extraction, dispossession, displacement, and destruction of the land. Industrial agriculture is promoted and marketed in the name of modernity and progress for humanity. But not every human will quite make it to this future of continuous degradation of the earth.

Through this journey, I am learning to choose a return to the land, to the villages, to the towns, to the forests, to the coasts, to the mountains, to the rivers, and to being a steward of the earth. Where we are now is where colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism has brought us. But, are we not all accountable?

Photography: Ekow Dawson

As Madam Janet and I walked through her farm, she tells me how she’s been able to organize thirty rural women’s groups in her community to support women farmers. She talks about the need for farmers to understand the value food chain, where their food goes, and who eats their food.

I often ask, what are we as humans without the land we eat on, grow on, live on, and age on? How can we grow food to feed the world in ways that is sustainable with the wellbeing of the land?

For me, it starts with acknowledging that we have messed up tremendously as a human race. There is an urgency to center the well-being of the land, and to heal our current food system. It’s a process of understanding how the natural world worked prior to our probing and dissecting. I am starting with learning and preserving century old ways of life that is in harmony with all living beings as my return to the land.