Effects of small-scale gold mining on farming in Atiwa West District

Abstract

Mining in developing countries are located in rural areas where agriculture is the main source of livelihood, mining communities in Ghana’s mineral-rich regions engage in food and cash crop production. Mineral exploitation contributes significantly to economic growth and development in most world economies. In Africa, Ghana is the first largest gold producer, contributing to about 8.7% of the country’s GDP. The mining sector in Ghana consists of both small-scale and large-scale mining, each of which has varying environmental impacts. The paper is examining the effects of gold mining on staple food crop production, water bodies and the impacts on the health of people living in the area as well as cost of living in these areas. The paper mainly focused on the mining activities in Atiwa West District in the Eastern region of the country. The data collection involved both primary and secondary sources. These included research tools such as review of relevant literature including personal observation, in-depth interviews with mining communities and government officials, environmental assessments of various mining sites in the study area. The findings from the study showed that mining activities, especially that resulting from illegal small-scale mining (popularly known as ‘galamsey’) deplete environmental resources such as water, soil, the landscape, vegetation, the ecosystem, among others. Important soil organisms have been destroyed, stable soil aggregates disrupted, and eventually depriving the soil of organic matter and low levels of macronutrients and soil fertility necessary for plant growth and crop production and this can leads to food insecurity in most parts of Ghana, in the long term. On the basis of the above, the study recommended that there should be effective community participation in environmental decision making to ensure sustainable mining activities; easing of the registration process for small-scale mines; addressing the various weaknesses in the policies and their enforcement in the mining sector.