The Rhetoric and Farmers’ Lived Realities of the Green Revolution in Africa: Case Study of the Brong Ahafo Region in Ghana

First Published May 25, 2021 Research Article

Authors

Department of Geography and Rural Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana

by this author
,
School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Australia
by this author
First Published Online: May 25, 2021

This paper presents a political ecological analysis of the drivers and impacts of Green Revolution technologies – including improved seeds, chemical fertiliser and other agrochemicals – in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. We identify national government, foreign investment and philanthro-capital as key drivers in shaping both narratives and uptake of Green Revolution technologies at the local level. Drawing from interviews and focus groups, our findings demonstrate that Green Revolution technologies deliver a range of negative local-level socio-ecological impacts, including increasing the overall costs of production, as well as exacerbating poverty and inequality amongst farmers. Our findings demonstrate the disconnection between claims that Green Revolution technologies increase food security and income, and lived experiences of farmers.

Al-Hassan, WS, Egyir, IS, Kuwornu, JKM (2014) Developments in Agricultural Economics and Contemporary Issues in Ghana. Tema: Digibooks Ghana.
Google Scholar
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (2017) Africa agriculture status report: The business of smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. No. 5. Nairobi: AGRA.
Google Scholar
Altieri, MA (1998) Ecological impacts of industrial agriculture and the possibilities for truly sustainable farming. Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine 50(3): 6071.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Amanor, KS (2009) Tree plantations, agricultural commodification, and land tenure security in Ghana. In: Ubink, J, Hoekema, A, Assies, W (eds) Legalising Land Rights: Local Practices, State Responses and Tenure Security in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Leiden: Leiden University Press, pp.133162.
Google Scholar
Amanor, KS (2010) Participation, commercialisation and actor networks: The political economy of cereal seed production systems in Ghana. Future Agricultures Working Paper 016. Brighton: Future Agricultures Consortium at the University of Sussex.
Google Scholar
Amanor, KS (2013) Dynamics of maize seed production systems in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana: Agricultural modernisation, farmer adaptive experimentation and domestic food markets. Future Agricultures Working Paper 061. Brighton: Future Agricultures Consortium at the University of Sussex.
Google Scholar
Amanor, KS, Pabi, O (2007) Space, time, rhetoric and agricultural change in the transition zone of Ghana. Human Ecology 35: 5167.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Asuming-Brempong, S (2003) Economic and Agricultural Policy Reforms and Their Effects on the Role of Agriculture in Ghana. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization.
Google Scholar
Asuming-Brempong, S, Kuwornu, KMJ (2013) Policy initiatives and agricultural performance in post-independent Ghana. Journal of Social and Development Sciences 4(9): 425434.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Beckie, MA (2000) Zero tillage and organic farming in Saskatchewan: An interdisciplinary study of the development of sustainable agriculture. PhD Thesis, University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Google Scholar
Berry, SS (1993) No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Google Scholar
Boafo, J, Lyons, K (2019) Expanding cashew nut exporting from Ghana’s breadbasket: A political ecology of changing land access and use, and impacts for local food systems. International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 25(2): 152172.
Google Scholar
Boafo, J, Appiah, OD, Tindan, DP (2019) Drivers of export-led agriculture in Ghana: The case of emerging cashew production in Ghana’s Brong Ahafo region. Australasian Review of African Studies 40(1): 3152.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Brenner, N (2001) The limits to scale? Methodological reflections on scalar structuration. Progress in Human Geography 25(4): 591614.
Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI
Cooke, E, Hague, S, McKay, A (2016) The Ghana poverty and inequality report: Using the 6th Ghana living standards survey, 2016. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/ghana/media/531/file/The%20Ghana%20Poverty%20and%20Inequality%20Report.pdf (accessed 3 November 2020).
Google Scholar
Desmarais, AA (2007) La via Campesina: Globalisation and the Power of Peasant. London: Fernwood Publication.
Google Scholar
Dethier, JJ, Effenberger, A (2012) Agriculture and development: A brief review of the literature. Economic Systems 36: 175205.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Djurfeldt, G, Holmen, H, Jirstroem, M, et al (eds) (2005) The African Food Crisis: Lessons from the Asian Green Revolution. Wallingford: CABI Publishing.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Evans, R, Mariwah, S, Antwi, KB (2015) Struggles over family land? Tree crops, land and labour in Ghana’s Brong-Ahafo region. Geoforum 67: 2435.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Frankema, E (2014) Africa and the Green Revolution: A global historical perspective. NJAS: Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 70–71: 1724.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) (2012). 2010 Population and housing census summary report of results. Ghana Statistical Service, Accra, Ghana
Google Scholar
GRAIN (2018) The Real Seed Producers; Small-Scale Farmers Save, Use, Share and Enhance the Seed Diversity of the Crops That Feed Africa. Barcelona: GRAIN. Available at: https://www.grain.org/e/6035 (accessed 5 April 2019).
Google Scholar
Green, K (2016) A political ecology of scaling: Struggles over power, land and authority. Geoforum 74: 8897.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Holt-Giménez, E (2017) A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism: Understanding the Political Economy of What We Eat. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Google Scholar | Crossref
International Food Policy Research Institute (2017) Strengthening and harmonizing food policy systems to achieve food security: A case study and lessons from Ghana. Discussion Paper 01607.Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.
Google Scholar
International Food Policy Research Institute (2009). The Asian Green Revolution. Discussion Paper 00911, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA.
Google Scholar
Kamara, A, Conteh, A, Rhodes, E, et al (2019) The relevance of smallholder farming to African agricultural growth and development. African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 19(1): 1404314065.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Kasanga, K, Kotey, NA (2001) Land Management in Ghana: Building Tradition and Modernity. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
Google Scholar
Kansanga, M, Arku, G, Luginaah, I (2019) Powers of exclusion and counter-exclusion: The political ecology of ethno-territorial customary land boundary conflicts in Ghana. Land Use Policy 86: 1222.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Kumar, V, Kumar, S, Sharma, K (2015). Socio-economic and political implications of the Green Revolution in Haryana. International Journal of Enhanced Research in Educational Development (IJERED), ISSN: 2320-8708 Vol. 3, Issue 3, May-June, 2015, pp: (17-24).
Google Scholar
Logah, FY, Obuobie, E, Ofori, D, et al (2013) Analysis of rainfall variability in Ghana. International Journal of Latest Research in Engineering and Computing 1(1): 18.
Google Scholar
McKeon, N (2014) The new alliance for food security and nutrition: A coup for corporate capital? TNI Agrarian Justice Programme, Policy Paper. Amsterdam: Terra Nuova and Transnational Institute.
Google Scholar
McMichael, P (2014) Rethinking land grab ontology. Rural Sociology 79(1): 3455.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Mamdani, M (1987) Extreme but not exceptional: Towards an analysis of the Agrarian question in Uganda. Journal of Peasant Studies 14(2): 191225.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Mathevet, R, Peluso, NL, Couespel, A, et al (2015) Using historical political ecology to understand the present: Water, reeds, and biodiversity in the Camargue Biosphere Reserve, southern France. Ecology and Society 20(4): 17.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Ministry of Food and Agriculture (2015) Agriculture in Ghana: Facts and figures. Accra: Statistics Research and Information Directorate (SRID) of the MOFA.
Google Scholar
Moseley, W, Schnurr, M, Bezner Kerr, R (2015) Interrogating the technocratic (neoliberal) agenda for agricultural development and hunger alleviation in Africa. African Geographical Review 34(1): 17.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Moseley, WG (2017) The new Green Revolution for Africa: A political ecology critique. Brown Journal of World Affair 23: 177.
Google Scholar
Noora, CL, Issah, K, Kenu, E, et al (2017) Large cholera outbreak in Brong Ahafo region, Ghana. BMC Research Notes 10(1): 18.
Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline
Nyantakyi-Frimpong, H, Bezner Kerr, R (2015) A political ecology of high-input agriculture in northern Ghana. African Geographical Review 34(1): 1335.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Obeng-Odoom, F (2016) Understanding land reform in Ghana: A critical postcolonial institutional approach. Review of Radical Political Economics 48(4): 661680.
Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI
Patel, R (2013) The long green revolution. Journal of Peasant Studies 40(1): 163.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Peet, R, Watts, M (2004) Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development and Social Movements. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Peet, R, Robbins, P, Watts, MJ (eds) (2011) Global Political Ecology. London: Taylor & Francis/ Routledge.
Google Scholar
Perreault, T, Bridge, G, McCarthy, J (eds) (2015) The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology. New York, US: Routledge International Handbooks. Routledge.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Pingali, PL (2012) Green revolution: Impacts, limits, and the path ahead. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(31): 1230212308.
Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI
Ragasa, C, Dankyi, A, Acheampong, P, et al (2013) Patterns of adoption of improved maize technologies in Ghana. Working Paper 36. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.
Google Scholar
Robbins, P (2012) Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction. 2nd edn. Chichester: Wiley.
Google Scholar
Sasakawa Africa Association (2015) Take it to the farmer: The Sasakawa experience in Africa. Tokyo: Sasakawa Africa Association. Available at: https://www.saa-safe.org/elfiles/d3gqNeG9/saa30year_history.pdf (accessed 20 March 2018).
Google Scholar
Schubert, J (2005) Political Ecology in Development Research. An Introductory Overview and Annotated Bibliography. Bern: NCCR North-South.
Google Scholar
Scrinis, G, Lyons, K (2011) Nanotechnology and the techno-corporate agri-food paradigm. In: Lawrence, G, Lyons, K, Wallington, T (eds) Food Security, Nutrition and Sustainability. London: Earthscan, pp.252270.
Google Scholar
Shiva, V (1993) The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics. Penang: Zed Books.
Google Scholar
Sowa, NK (1996) Adjustment in Africa: Lessons from Ghana. Overseas Development Institute. Available at: http://www.rrojasdatabank.info/ghana1.htm (accessed 15 August 2016).
Google Scholar
Thompson, CB (2012) Alliance for a green revolution in Africa (AGRA): Advancing the theft of African genetic wealth. Review of African Political Economy 39(132): 345350.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Vercillo, S, Hird-Younger, M (2019) Farmer resistance to agriculture commercialisation in Northern Ghana. Third World Quarterly 40(4): 763779.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Vercillo, S, Weis, T, Luginaah, I (2020) A bitter pill: Smallholder responses to the new green revolution prescriptions in northern Ghana. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 27(6): 565575.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Watts, M (1983) Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Google Scholar
Watts, M (2000) Political ecology. In: Sheppard, E, Barnes, T (eds) A Companion to Economic Geography. Oxford: Blackwell, p.257.
Google Scholar
Watts, M (2016) From vulnerability to resilience: Hans-Georg Bohle’s scholarship and contemporary political ecology. DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin 147(4): 252265.
Google Scholar
Whitfield, L (2018) Economies After Colonialism Ghana and the Struggle for Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Wise, AT (2020) Failing Africa’s farmers: An impact assessment of the alliance for a green revolution in Africa. Global Development and Environment Institute, No. 20-01. Medford: Tufts University.
Google Scholar
World Bank (2017) Ghana – agriculture sector policy note: Transforming agriculture for economic growth, job creation and food security. Agriculture Global Practice AFR01. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Google Scholar
Yaro, AJ, Teye, KJ, Torvikey, DG (2017) Agricultural commercialisation models, Agrarian dynamics and local development in Ghana. Journal of Peasant Studies 44(3): 538554.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Yaro, AJ, Teye, KJ, Torvikey, DG (2018) Historical context of agricultural commercialisation in Ghana: Changes in land and labour relations. Journal of Asian and African Studies 53(1): 4963.
Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI

Access content

To read the fulltext, please use one of the options below to sign in or purchase access.
  • Access Options

    My Account

    Welcome
    You do not have access to this content.

    Chinese Institutions / 中国用户

    Click the button below for the full-text content

    请点击以下获取该全文

    Institutional Login

    Purchase Content

    24 hours online access to download content

    Added to Cart

    Cart is full

    There is currently no price available for this item in your region.

    Research off-campus without worrying about access issues. Find out about Lean Library here


Purchase

JAS-article-ppv for GBP29.00
JAS-article-ppv for $37.50

Article available in:

Related Articles

Articles Citing this One: 0