Talk:Afram Plains

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Discussion for: Afram Plains • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Afram Plains treats the Afram plains of Ghana's Eastern Region, between the Afram River and Volta Lake, as a cannabis growing area: the Kwahu Afram Plains North and Kwahu Afram Plains South districts. It covers the land the sources describe, the accounts of how cannabis growing reached the plains and the farm found in a forest reserve in 2022. Ghana's law on cannabis and the national picture are treated at Ghana.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Why the Afram Plains is a growing area

The Drug Nexus in Africa (United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, 1999) names the Afram plains, with Ashanti and Brong Ahafo, among the new growing areas of Ghana (p. 22). One trader interviewed for it places the best grade, "no seed dope", deep inside forests on the Afram plains, in Ashanti and in Brong Ahafo (p. 23).
Léonard (1998), quoting Laniel (1995), has cannabis spreading from the mid-1960s through Ashanti, first around Kumasi and then east towards the Afram plains (p. 96). A map on p. 94, credited to Gastellu (1982) and Laniel (1995), marks a main marijuana-producing zone on the western shore of Volta Lake in the Eastern Region.
The Ghanaian Times (15 and 16 August 2022), 3News (13 August 2022) and Citinewsroom (15 August 2022) report a cannabis farm of about 80 hectares found by the Forestry Commission in a forest reserve in Kwahu Afram Plains North District, with seedlings being raised for planting and harvested cannabis on site.
The status is Active: the 2022 reports record cannabis being grown since 2000. No source read says that growing has ended.

Extent and border

No source read for this page draws a boundary round the growing area. The 1990s sources name "the Afram plains" without limits; the 2022 reports name a forest reserve in Kwahu Afram Plains North District.
The map border is approximate. It is drawn on the two present-day districts that carry the name, Kwahu Afram Plains North and Kwahu Afram Plains South, which until 2012 were one district (Afram Plains District from 1993, later renamed Kwahu North District). Together they cover the land between the Afram River and Volta Lake, with the islands in the lake. The border covers about 5,230 km²; the infobox area is rounded from it.
Donkorkrom (the court town in 2022) and Oboakroma Hill lie inside the northern district; Tease lies inside the southern one. The forest reserve could not be placed on a map. Digya National Park, to the north, is outside the border.
Sekyere Afram Plains District, on the Ashanti side of the Afram River, also carries the name. It is left outside the border because no source read for this page places cannabis growing there. Laniel's "towards the Afram plains", read from Kumasi, could take in land on that side of the river; the account does not say which.
The southern district is inside the border although no source read for this page names a farm there; it is part of the plain the 1990s sources name.

Sources

The Drug Nexus in Africa (1999). The Ghana section (pp. 22–23) was read in full in the UNODC PDF.
Léonard (1998). Read in full in the IRD PDF. The passage on the Afram plains is Léonard's quotation of Laurent Laniel, Développement de la culture du cannabis et du trafic de marihuana au Ghana (Observatoire géopolitique des drogues, 1995), which was not read directly.
The dates differ. The 1999 study dates the first cultivation, near Accra, to the 1940s and 1950s, and has the crop spreading north-west from there. Laniel dates its spread in Ashanti to the mid-1960s and has it moving east from Kumasi towards the plains. The article gives both.
The 2022 farm. The four reports agree on the farm's size (about 80 hectares), the district and the Forestry Commission's part. They differ on the reserve's name (Obuo Akroma in the Ghanaian Times, Akroma in 3News) and on how many escaped (about ten in Citinewsroom, eight in 3News). "The largest cannabis farm ever" is the claim of the Ghanaian Times report and is attributed in the article. The names of the people arrested are not used.
Geography. The land, drainage, islands, vegetation, forest reserves, ethnic make-up and district history come from the composite budgets for 2026–2029 of the Kwahu Afram Plains North District Assembly (pp. 4, 6, 32–33) and the Kwahu Afram Plains South District Assembly (p. 4). The northern budget gives two different land areas (about 2,750 km² and 2,341.3 km²) and two different accounts of the rainy seasons; neither the areas nor the rainfall are used.

Sources not used

The Ghana Statistical Service's district analytical reports for the two districts (2014) could not be opened.