Written by: Joseph Yaro, Joseph Kofi Teye and Steve Wiggins

Since cocoa began to be cultivated in the 1880s in southern Ghana, it has created jobs, incomes and prosperity for the many farmers growing the crop. Until recently, cocoa farmers could make use of highly favourable conditions when clearing forests to plant cocoa. They needed to do little other than plant seedlings then wait to harvest the pods. When trees aged, or soil fertility declined, or swollen shoot viral disease attacked the trees, they could abandon the old groves and move to establish new stands of cocoa in virgin forests. Over the decades, the frontier for new cocoa farms moved west across the country. By the 2000s, however, the last available forests in Western Region were being taken up and the frontier closed. With no new land available for cocoa, farmers would need to maintain and renew their groves to preserve their incomes, and to intensify production if they wanted to earn more from cocoa. At the same time, farmers faced increasing attacks from pests, fungi, parasites and the deadly threat of swollen shoot – while their trees aged and needed replanting. As a result of a lack of technical knowledge and capital, farmers struggled to respond to these challenges, continue cocoa production and intensify further. This study explores if it is still possible to make a living from cocoa in the region and if so, how.

Written by: Kojo Amanor, Joseph Yaro and Joseph Teye

Cocoa production has a long history in Ghana, originating in the late nineteenth century. Since then, cocoa production has seen significant changes. Originally, cocoa was cultivated in newly cleared forests in which many forest trees were preserved as shade trees. Cocoa is ideally suited to these conditions and produces high yields with minimum investment in labour and inputs. However, over time, as the forest conditions change, the cost of cultivating cocoa has increased and yields have declined. As long as new forest frontiers exist, farmers have continued to move into these areas, which have displaced older areas of cultivation, since the costs of production are significantly lower in the new frontiers. In recent years, however, new forest frontiers have declined and most cocoa farmers have been forced to rehabilitate and replant cocoa in open land. This study examines the rational of frontier development; changes in land relations, labour relations and use of technology; and the impact of these factors on different categories of farmers, including women and youth. This is developed through two comparative case studies drawn from the older cocoa frontier of the Eastern Region, and the more recent frontier of Western North Region.

Written by: Kojo Amanor, Joseph Yaro and Joseph Teye

The commercialisation of cocoa production in Ghana has a long history dating back to the nineteenth century. The process of commercial development in cocoa is well documented and provides an alternative mode to contemporary models of commercialisation rooted in the adoption of modern technology and integration of farmers into markets. This working paper critically analyses frameworks for agricultural commercialisation in cocoa through intensification based on the uptake of synthetic inputs and hybrid seeds, by placing agricultural development within a broader framework of the historical development of the frontier in Ghana, and the related problems of ecological and economic crises. The study examines access to land, labour and technology, and how the complex interactions of scarcity of access to physical resources and labour influence farmers’ farming strategies and adoption of technology.

Written by: Joseph Yaro, Joseph K. Teye and Steve Wiggins

When in the 1880s farmers in southern Ghana began to plant cocoa, their main concerns were finding land to plant and mobilising labour to do so. The issue of finding land remained paramount until at least the 1990s, when the land frontier of forest to clear for cocoa finally closed. The last forests to be planted were in the old Western Region and particularly in Sefwi, now the Western North Region. This paper examines how farmers in Sefwi obtained land and mobilised labour in the late 2010s, and how that has changed since the 1960s.

Written by: Esther Naa Dodua Darku and Alexander Nii Adjei Sowah

Oil palm is the second most important cash crop after cocoa, and the sector is an important contributor to the Ghanaian economy. The production of cash crops in Ghana has largely been dominated by small-scale farmers in mostly rural areas since the 1800s. The high value placed on cash crops often leads to better livelihood outcomes for cash crop farmers. However, the ability to sustainably participate in oil palm cultivation depends on secure access to land. One of the major challenges of small-scale farming in Africa is the land tenure system that affects the ability of farmers to make long-term financial and technical/technological commitments that will help farmers fully maximise the economic potential of the land. This paper examines different land tenure arrangements in five oil palm growing communities in south-western Ghana, and how different rules for land access affect different social groups. We focus specifically on the gendered aspects of access to land and their implications on equitable participation in the oil palm economy of these communities.

Written by: Joseph Yaro, Ibrahim Wahab, Gloria Afful-Mensah and Michael Ben Awenam

Since the turn of the century, agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa has been undergoing rapid transformation. Ghana is experiencing an agrarian revolution with increasing farmland sizes, increased mechanisation of production and external input usage, and high levels of commercialisation. In this paper we show the growth of farm sizes, the major drivers of increasing farm sizes, and emerging relations between different scales of farmers. The paper discusses the synergies and contradictions emerging from the processes of agricultural commercialisation in the context of rising farmland sizes and the implications for different social groups.

Written by: Joseph Yaro, Ibrahim Wahab, Gloria Afful-Mensah and Michael Ben Awenam

Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is undergoing rapid transformation involving major changes in farmland ownership and farm scales from small to medium farms, with the widespread use of mechanisation and agro-inputs. Generally, households are increasing their farm sizes while others are dropping out of agriculture as the non-farm economy grows in both rural and urban areas. This study examined the changes in farmland sizes in two districts in the north of Ghana where agricultural extensification is still possible. Specifically, the study addressed the questions of the historical agrarian context; the magnitude and character of farm structure changes; the emerging spatial manifestation of farms; and the use of factors of production among the emerging socially differentiated farmers.

Written by: Dorothy Takyiakwaa, Prince Selorm Kodzo Tetteh and Kofi Takyi Asante

As the second most important industrial crop in Ghana, oil palm holds the potential of improving farmers’ livelihoods and alleviating rural poverty. For smallholder farmers, collective action through farmer-based organisations (FBOs) could provide a pathway to inclusive participation in agricultural commercialisation. There is ample evidence in the literature that collective action can help smallholders gain access to credit, improved inputs, or even networks of social support. Thus, collective action is widely recognised as a viable pathway out of poverty for the agrarian poor. However, our findings show that FBOs were either weak or non-existent. Indeed, we find that economic relations between farmers tend to be more individualised than one would expect to find in rural communities. This paper presents these findings, and explores why this is the case.