“I miss my family a lot,” says Philip Bachela, a farmer in his early 20s from the Garu district in Northern Ghana. “That’s why we have phones. I call them to find out how they are doing and how they’re faring.”
Bachela and his wife Amaasom have an infant son, Julius*. Yet, every year, during Northern Ghana’s dry season, Bachela leaves his farm and family to work as a labourer in small-scale mines. He is just one of thousands of Ghanaians who take part in a seasonal migration from north to south.
With most of the population here reliant on rain-fed agriculture, people have become accustomed to heading south during the dry season. The south is more lush and prosperous, with two rainy seasons, cocoa plantations, cassava farms, gold mines and the capital city, Accra, on the coast.
However, these disparities between the north and the south – and the effects on families of concomitant seasonal migration – are becoming more pronounced because of the climate crisis. In places such as Garu, the climate emergency is already a fact of life, cutting short the wet season during which crops can be grown.
“These days, because of rainfall patterns and climate change, there is a lot more time that is unused,” explains Obed Asunka, climate change and livelihoods officer at an agricultural station in Garu. “That is why many people travel to the south, work there, and get some money to come and support their families.”
He describes the ongoing battle with the effects of a changing climate: “Drought is everywhere, every year. Floods are everywhere, every year. The rains used to come from April and end around November, but now the rains might not come until around June, and by the first week of October the rains are stopping.”
He notes how, this Christmas, the weather will likely be warmer. “November, December and January here used to be very cold but these days you don’t find these months to be a cold season – it’s always hot,” he says. “The question is how? It wasn’t like that before … There are so many things that used to happen and you don’t see them now,” says Asunka.
To compound these erratic rainfall patterns, Ghanaian farmers must contend with longer periods of Harmattan (hot desert winds) – which farmers have pointed to as another symptom of climate disaster. Windstorms uproot trees and damage houses and livestock, as well as adding to the toll on crops.
Lower yields of the staple crops of maize, sorghum, millet and guinea corn means less food in the larder and fewer cedis (the local currency) in the pocket. Hence the migration south.
Most of the migrants are young men. But some of those with young families, such as Bachela, also feel compelled to join the exodus.
Abbas Musah (top); Garu farmer Cynthia
Dry season work in the south is a world away from tending your own few acres. In illegal gold mines, workers use mercury, which then poisons water supplies, and their working and living conditions are poor. “Many guys have died when engaged in illegal mining,” says Abass Musah, headmaster of a junior high school in Garu district. “People risk themselves just to earn income for their upkeep.” Small-scale mining, an industry that, it is estimated, relies on more than a million labourers, is also responsible for rapid deforestation, leading to further climate change.
“Climate change results in more droughts and more excessive rainfall, which means harvests are more likely to fail,” says Kees van der Geest, head of the migration and environment section at the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn. But worsening climate change need not result in increasing seasonal migration. “In drought years with poor harvests, seasonal migration increases, but better education and more non-agricultural work opportunities – such as small trade and better roads to take goods to market – can reduce migration,” he says. “These pull factors can help keep people in the north, even when climate change is worsening.”
Oxfam is helping to provide alternatives to traditional rain-fed agriculture in a bid to help families build their resilience to the effects of climate change. A solar-powered borehole provides enough water – even in dry season – for villagers to grow green vegetables in a small community plot. Any surplus can be sold, and better roads mean that fresh fruit and vegetables can travel to markets further away.
Community banking schemes such as Oxfam’s Village Saving and Loan Associations, also known as “Bank in a Box” provide people with micro loans. Poakurugu Karim borrowed from her village bank and started a poultry-rearing project. “After doing that I was selected as the best farmer and I won a prize,” she says. “The prizes included empty sacks and wellington boots. I was so happy because I have become somebody who is recognised in the district.”
Oxfam is also helping to develop soap-making and beekeeping business opportunities, both of which can provide an income for households during the dry season. As Karim points out, such ventures reap more than just financial rewards.
In the meantime, while some men consider a few months working on a cocoa plantation or doing galamsey (the local word for illegal small-scale mining) as a rite of passage, there are others who dream of the day this will all end.
“It is not my wish to travel south every year,” says Bachela. “There is a time when I will come home and settle permanently. One of the reasons I keep travelling south is to get enough resources to help my son so that he doesn’t have to go through what I am going through. Everything now revolves around education. I would like him to attend school and become a doctor.”
* Name changed
Families on the frontline of the climate emergency urgently need your help. Donate now to Oxfam’s Green Christmas appeal.
