CONCRETE GRAVES: A Threat To National Food Security, Efficient Land Management System And The Environment

STORY BY: PIUS K. DOGBEY

In many parts of Ghana and Africa, concrete graves are becoming prominent part of the landscape. Unknowingly, the cement, bricks, sand, wire mesh and tiles used to construct these graves, do not only pose a threat to the efficient land management system and the environment, but also, to national food security.

The caskets of many dead sons and daughters of the land, made out of mahogany - a pricey hard wood, were laid in a concrete tomb lined with spotless white tiles prestigiously, are the order of the day.

To the majority of Ghanaians, it was a fancy ceremony for a son of the soil who might have lived overseas before his demise.

The ignorance being expressed, however, by environmental experts, is that, the wealthy person, who benefitted a lot from this environment, would not be able to give back to it. All the nutrients in his body would be cordoned off from the soil by the concrete and tiles in the grave, breaking the cycle of “I-feed-you-you-feed-me”.

According to projections made by the Birth and Death Registry, Ghana’s death rate as at last year stands at 10% of every 1,000 population, meaning an expected 259,072 Ghanaians have passed on at the end of last year. These figures, however, are only based on the Registry’s 24% nationwide coverage capacity.

In reference, 76% of the deaths that take place in the country go unregistered by the Birth and Death Registry, despite regulations and measures put in place by the state to procure a burial permit before any dead body could be buried in the country.

Thus, multiplying the Registry’s projected 259,072 deaths by 2, to make for the unregistered deaths, an estimated, not less than, 518,144 Ghanaians are expected to die in 2013.

By these figures, a projected 5.2 million Ghanaians are expected to die between 2013 and 2022 and if all these bodies are buried in cemented graves, the concrete would cover nearly 2,667 acres of productive land. 

That amount of concrete will interrupt the natural flow of water, nutrients, soil and the earth will keep losing valuable nutrients, becoming degraded and unable to sustain the activities and the people left above it.

Furthermore, this activity will also jeopardize the gains being made under the Ghana Land Administration Project which is intended to implement the key policy actions recommended in the Ghana Land Policy of 1999, to address critical issues militating against effective and efficient Land Administration in the country.  

It is, however, not clear precisely, how much land is occupied by cemented graves, but the footprint they leave on arable land is increasing.

It is not only the wealthy who are buried in cemented graves, but also people who spend their earthly lives in mud and wattle houses.

According to environmental analysts, people have abandoned the practice of burying the dead in the earth because cultural beliefs have blind-folded them and scientific facts have not been explained to them. “The bodies are supposed to rot and disperse nutrients for other organisms,” they say. 

Concrete graves are reducing the productive land needed to grow food. As the population grows, Ghana’s 148 500 km² Agricultural land is reducing in size and as graves are being exhumed from urban areas and relocated to rural places cemented, so is the amount of concrete buried inside the earth keeps growing.

A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says poor land use is fuelling depletion of resources, reduction of soil fertility and exacerbating the food crisis. Thus, threatening the economies of agriculture-dependent countries, such as Ghana.

Ghana as a developing country relies primarily on Agriculture, Forestry and Mining for its economic sustenance thus, heavily dependent on land. These three key sources form about 70% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For this reason, there is the need for land agencies to review the statutes on land in the country.

In a situation where there are seemingly abundant resources, Ghanaians need to be reminded that an ecological system is made up of many small parts, which, if considered individually, are insignificant. 

According to some agriculture research results, the human body also provides food to subterranean animal life. Termites are now eating away grass and trees in certain parts of the country because the ground has run out of organic matter to feed on. The bodies are supposed to rot and disperse nutrients for other organisms.

The need for charcoal has also cost the area ground nutrients, as trees, which would have been left to rot and provide nutrients for the termites to forage on, are cut down faster than they are replaced. 

It is also believed that the more educated people become, the more they are detached from the land. The remains of people who live abroad are sent home ‘prestigiously’ in a coffin and then buried in cemented graves.

However, Maathai Wangari, a Nobel Prize winner in Kenya, in her will, asked to be cremated (burnt after death). This ignited a debate within the region and the entire African continent. 

There is, therefore, the need to establish the dangers of cemented graves that will provide basis for governments to regulate the way the dead should be disposed of. The population also needs to know that a prestigious send-off is tantamount to “stealing” land from future generations.

Today’s funeral practices are not environmentally friendly. Between clearing land out to make burial sites, trees are cut down to make caskets and embalming fluid which contains chemicals.

However, environmentally friendly burial alternatives such as Biodegradable Urns, Batesville Cremation Urns, On Earth Australia, Coffin Cover and Eco-coffin could be used for our burials.  

It has come, therefore, as a laudable idea that the government through the Land Administration Project under the auspices of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is providing a platform on the legal and regulatory framework governing land administration and land use, as well as, complete the ongoing work of the land bill and land use and planning bill for an efficient land management system.