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Volta is the cannabis growing region of the present Volta Region of Ghana, between Volta Lake and the border with Togo. It covers where cannabis is grown there, the farms the police have found and destroyed, and the trade from the farms to Accra. The administrative region itself is treated at Volta Region, and Ghana's law on cannabis at Ghana.
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Discussion
Why Volta is a growing region
- The UNODC review in the Bulletin on Narcotics for 2006 (p. 71) names the Volta Region among the four principal growing areas of Ghana. The Narcotics Control Board ranked it first in the country for use and cultivation in 2016 (GhanaWeb, 22 June 2016). In 2009 the Hohoe district police commander said that cannabis was grown on a large scale in many parts of the region (MyJoyOnline, 21 April 2009).
- Farms are reported from several districts inside it: Hohoe (2007, 2009, 2015, and growers interviewed in 2024), Peki-Dzake in South Dayi District (July 2026) and Mangoase in Central Tongu District (October 2026). A farm of 100 acres destroyed in December 2001 is placed only in "the Volta Region" (Mail & Guardian, 31 December 2001).
- No source read describes the region as one tract beyond these statements at the scale of the administrative region. The article gives each source at its own scale.
The title
The page is titled Volta, not Volta Region, so that the administrative region keeps its own title, Volta Region, which pages on the wiki already link.
How the border is drawn
- The border is a proxy drawn on the present Volta Region (OpenStreetMap relation 3328699), not on accession points. It covers about 9,500 km², the figure in the infobox.
- The sources of 1999, 2001, 2006, 2009 and 2016 speak of the Volta Region before February 2019, when part of it became the Oti Region, following a referendum in December 2018; the old region covered 20,570 km² (Graphic Online, 15 February 2019). Their statements about the region as a whole therefore also covered what is now the Oti Region. The border follows the present region, because every farm the sources place below the scale of the region (Hohoe, Peki-Dzake, Mangoase) lies inside it, and no source read names a farm in the Oti Region. Whether the Oti Region belongs to the growing region is an open question.
- Where Hohoe reaches the edge of the region, on its northern side against the Oti Region and on its eastern side along the border with Togo, the region follows Hohoe's line. About 13 km² of land along those edges, where the line of the Volta Region and the line of Hohoe differ, was left out of the region.
- On the west the line runs through Volta Lake, where it meets the lines of Afram Plains and Brong Ahafo. Afram Plains is not part of this region.
- The infobox point (6.40, 0.55) is the centre of the border polygon.
Growing status
The status is Active: police found farms at Peki-Dzake in July 2026 and at Mangoase in October 2026, and growers were interviewed at Hohoe in 2024. No source says that growing has stopped.
Sources
- UNODC (2006) is the review "Review of the world cannabis situation", Bulletin on Narcotics vol. LVIII, published in 2008; page numbers are the printed ones. It lists the four regions without ranking them.
- The Drug Nexus in Africa (1999) was read in the UNODC PDF; page numbers are the printed ones. The "taffeta" ranking is that of one trader, who was well informed about the south of the country.
- Mail & Guardian (2001) is a Sapa-DPA wire report of the Narcotics Control Board's statement. It gives the farm as 100 acres and the crop as three tons, and places the farm only in the Volta Region.
- MyJoyOnline (2009). The statement that cannabis was grown on a large scale in many parts of the region is the Hohoe district police commander's; the account of farms along the lake, of owners in Accra and of the parcels hidden in vehicles is that of Joy FM's Volta correspondent. Both are attributed in the article.
- GhanaWeb (2016) carries a 3News report of a statement by the Narcotics Control Board's education unit. The same report gives figures of drug users by region for 2014, in which the Volta Region is not first; the ranking for use and cultivation is the board's statement as reported.
- Graphic Online (20 July 2026) reports the Peki-Dzake operation of the previous Thursday. The use of the seeds as poultry feed and the sheep grazing on the plants are the paper's statements and are attributed to it.
- Ghanaian Times (19 October 2026) reports a police statement: the plantation and the dried leaves are "suspected" cannabis, and the article says so. The name of the man arrested is not used.
- Dovlo et al. (2026) is the source of the "hub" description of Hohoe; the study is treated in full at Hohoe.
Not used
- The Narcotics Control Commission's destruction of cannabis in February 2023, which it said had been seized mainly in the Volta and Eastern regions (Ghana News Agency, 9 February 2023). Where cannabis was seized does not show where it was grown.
Open questions
- Whether the Oti Region, part of the Volta Region until 2019, belongs to the growing region.
- Whether the shore of Volta Lake, where the 2009 correspondent placed many farms and where the Mangoase plantation was found, should be treated as a growing area of its own.