Beyond Gold: Balancing mining, agriculture, sustainable development in Mo/Degaland

The debate on mining in Ghana continues to intensify, particularly over environmental degradation linked to small-scale and artisanal mining.

Yet, beyond these concerns lies a deeper national question of how mining can be structured to create employment, while protecting the environment and sustaining rural livelihoods.

This question is especially relevant in the Mo (Dega) areas within the Savannah, Bono and Bono East regions of Ghana, where communities such as Jama, Bamboi, Jugboi, New Longoro, Ayorya, Buswema, Kandige, Yaara and surrounding enclaves depend heavily on land and natural resources for survival.

These communities lie within the Black Volta River basin, a sensitive ecological zone that supports farming, fishing and domestic water supply, making land-use decisions in the area particularly critical.

Agriculture has historically been the backbone of livelihoods in Mo/Degaland.

However, farmland is increasingly under pressure due to environmental changes and infrastructure development, including activities linked to the Bui Power Authority and the hydroelectric dam project.

While the dam remains an important national energy asset, its associated land-use changes have reduced farming space in surrounding communities, intensifying youth unemployment and contributing to the growing shift toward mining.

Mining, opportunity, risk

Mining has become a key alternative livelihood in these communities, providing income for miners and supporting a wider local economy of traders, transport operators, mechanics and service providers.

However, because these settlements lie along the Black Volta River, mining activities carry heightened environmental risks, especially when unregulated.

The Black Volta River system is central to water supply, agriculture and biodiversity in the area.

Poor mining practices can ,therefore, have far-reaching consequences, including water contamination, destruction of riverbanks, loss of farmland and long-term ecological degradation.

This makes environmental protection not optional but fundamental to any mining activity in the region.

For mining to be sustainable, it must be linked to structured skills development.

Young people require training in technical and vocational skills, agribusiness, engineering, equipment maintenance and environmental restoration to ensure long-term economic resilience beyond mining cycles.

Ghana’s 24-Hour Economy Initiative provides an opportunity to restructure mining communities into more diversified economic systems.

With proper planning, Mo/Degaland can support continuous mining value-chain activities, including transport, processing, equipment servicing and logistics operating beyond daylight hours.

Recommendations

Mining should be clearly zoned to prevent uncontrolled encroachment into farmlands and ecologically sensitive areas along the Black Volta River. Land reclamation must be compulsory to restore mined-out lands for agriculture or ecological recovery.

Community-based mining cooperatives should be encouraged to ensure structured participation and benefit-sharing.

Skills development centres should be strengthened in Jama, Bamboi, Jugboi and surrounding communities.

Environmental monitoring must be decentralised with active community participation to protect the Black Volta basin.

Lesson

Although this discussion focuses on Mo/Degaland, the challenges reflect a wider national reality across Ghana, including declining farmland, rising unemployment, informal mining dependence and environmental stress on rivers and forests.

Mo/Degaland ,therefore, serves as a microcosm of Ghana’s broader rural development challenge requiring coordinated policy responses.

The writer is Nnaa Lanjagor Karley II, the Paramount Chief of the Jama Traditional Area/land economist/Associate Professor at the Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge, United Kingdom.