Agrarian transformation in Ghana’s Brong Ahafo region: Drivers and outcomes

Abstract

Food and agricultural systems in the global South have undergone recent and significant transformation. Such changes are driven by an array of actors, and alongside social, political and economic forces, including a renewed investment by global development actors following the global agri-food crisis in the mid-2000s. The global agri-food crisis, in particular, is associated with speculations in food and agriculture, alongside the introduction of new modernisation policies and programmes n including the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. Such interventions are often couched as a response to the challenge of feeding the worldrs growing population, estimated to reach nine billion by 2050. In Africa, an agricultural transformation is also closely tied to initiatives to modernise agriculture, including expanding export-led agricultural development.Turning to Ghana in particular, market-based and export-led agricultural development policies and narratives have expanded since at least the mid-2000s, incorporating new actors, and extending their local level impacts. During this period, dominant agricultural development narratives framed Ghanars agrarian problems as largely technical and supply-side problems, which could be solved by increasing productivity as well as diversifying into the production of export crops, thereby addressing poverty, food insecurity, and global market access issues. In particular, the promotion of cashew nut production as export diversification has integrated farmers in the Brong Ahafo Region into the global commodity market. These market-based approaches are shaping agricultural practices n with outcomes that are transforming agriculture in Ghana, particularly the Brong Ahafo Region.With this as context, this thesis adopts a critical political ecology approach to analyse contemporary processes and outcomes of agricultural transformation in Ghanars Brong Ahafo Region. Political ecology was adopted to render transparent the complex political, economic and socio-cultural processes across different global and local scales shaping agricultural transformation in the region, often referred to as the lbreadbasketr of Ghana.The research adopts qualitative methods, including interviews, focus group discussions, observation and policy document analysis, to gather in-depth data on farming systems in the Brong Ahafo Region. At the local level, data was gathered from farmers and local agricultural actors across four communities in the region: Wenchi, Amponsahkrom, Kintampo, and Nyakoma. At the national level, data was also gathered from NGOs, policymakers, politicians and development partners/international donors.The results presented in the thesis demonstrate that Ghanars contemporary agricultural policies are largely shaped by market-based narratives, with significance influence from international donors. Specifically, through technical and financial aids (alongside other inducements), international donors wield power in shaping narratives of agricultural policies. The ability of international donors to shape and influence agricultural policies in Ghana demonstrates the politicisation of agricultural policy processes in Ghana. The thesis further shows that agricultural policy narratives have broadly framed food insecurity and poverty in Ghana as supply-side problems that can be solved through the adoption of technical solutions. The conception of food security as a technical problem gives urgency to promotion and adoption of technical inputs such as modern seeds, chemical fertilisers and agrochemicals, resulting in an array of socioecological impacts.The results also demonstrate that historical legacies, alongside high global demand for cashew nuts, marketisation and commercialisation narratives, and alongside socio-cultural factors, are driving land-use changes towards the production of cashew destined for the global market. While farmers are earning income from cashew, its production is distorting local food production as well as reinforcing social differentiation through various patterns of land accumulation and class struggle.Informed by political ecology, this thesis argues that multiple complex processes across global, national and local scales, including global Green Revolution narratives, commercialisation narratives, historical legacies, as well as local level sociocultural factors, are shaping the transformation of agriculture in the Brong Ahafo Region. The thesis concludes by arguing that broader changes to top-down conventional narratives of agricultural development are required to address agriculture and food challenges currently facing Ghana.n