The development of agrarian capitalism in Ghana: with particular reference to ejura district

SEMI IT A R

ON

THE EMERGENCE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM IN AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA

(Dakar

3 December to 12 December

1973)

THE DE TELOPIIENT OF ÁGRARIAN CAPITALISM IN GHANA WITH PARTICULlR REFERENCE

TO EJTJRA DISTRICT

By Taye GURMP

OCTOBER 1973

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Page

11'.

THE DEVELOPMENT OP AGRARIAN CAPITALISM IE CHAM : T,rITK PARTICULAR" REFERENCE '

.: TQ EJURA DISTRICT

INTRODUCTION:

To the student of political _economy, the study of the emer¬

gence of capitalism in agriculture is both interesting and challeng¬

ing because of the complex production relationships that exist in the rural -areas and also because of the different paths that capitalism

follows in its evolution. Of course, the question of the ^rise of agrarian capitalism is part and parcel of the larger question of the development of capitalism as a whole. In its essential feature capi¬

talism is the division of classes between propertyless wage-earners and entrepreneurs who ^own capital. -This, applied- to

agriculture,

means that agrarian capitalism is characterized by the private owner¬

ship of the means of production such as land, farm, tools etc,, the employment of labour power by wages which suggest that this labor power has attained the value of a commodity to be bought and sold in

the market just like any other commodity, and finally, production is

not merely for the reproduction of the labor power but for the wider market with the expressed motive of earning profit.

While there seems to be very little or no disagreement as to the above features characterizing agrarian capitalism, the question

of class differentiation and class identification raises some pro¬

blems. For

instance,

what is the class position of a wage-earner who sells his labor _power to a "capitalist" but is not wholly dis¬

possessed of his means of production. That is to say, either he comes with his own farm implements or has his own plot of land in addition to being a wage-earner. The same can be said in reverse of the

"capitalist". This obviously demands, the analysis of a concrete ^..

existing social formation-aode of production,, and should not be dealt

with at the theoretical level alone.

(The

reader is referred to the

CS/2544-17

Page 2.

works of S.

Amin, AÍthuser Shah, N. Roulantzas etc. for the under¬

standing of the concept of social formation-mode of

production).

However, ^as to the question of class identification, a"break" "through

was ..made by Lenin in his studies of the "The Development of Capita¬

lism in Russia" and "Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States pf America". Lenin, while recognizing the above mentioned features

of .agrarian capitalism as fundamental, he however did not stop there.

1/

He.introduced the concept Of class interest into his

analyses.-^

Karl Kantsky too did not put himself in a straight jacket in his analysis of the nature of agrarian capitalism. In his bock "The Agrarian Question" he said that the urgent task of.modern theory :is

not to add new monographs but to investigate the main trends of the capitalist evolution of agriculture as a

whole.-—''

' The development of agrarian capitalism has brought along with it the victory of large-scale farming ^over small scale farming.

However it should not be understood that large—scale farming is ipso facto a capitalist feature.' It can exist and has existed in pre—

: , . ■ ... , : 4 • ; - " .. ... .• , . • ■

capitalist social formations. This aspect of the problem too is rai¬

sed along with those factors which _gave large scale farming its ^ca¬

pitalist features, i.e. the production relation that exists cn the farm and the commodity production for the market. Co-operative or-

.'. ) ^. . . ... .. • ' : '1 '• • • • •

ganizations, marketing

boards,

credit banks, etc., though net directly

related the growth of capitalism, have acted as vehicles for its development. They too are therefore included

in the stucy.

The significant contributions which Polly Hill has made to the understanding of the Rest African peasantry are too well known by now as to require any fresh introduction.

'However,

one of her

last works "Studies in Rural

CápitalisnA^in

^{Rest Africa1' deserves}

here a special mention ^- at least as far ^as the concept 'of "capita¬

lism" is concerned and the criteria used tc call the cocoa farmer

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Page 3.

as capitalist, Polly Hill offers the following criterias the Ghanaian cocoa farmer is capitalist because he bought the land for the particular purpose of growing ^cocoa on it, that cocoa growing

is considered as a business

(i.e.

profit

motive)

and that the farm is run on a large-scale. This is the truth but only a part of it.

While it may be correct to categorize a farmer as "capitalist" be¬

cause he produces for profit, this is net a sufficient criteria by itself. The fundamental criteria we have mentioned above are alto¬

gether lacking here. As to the question - large-scale farming as a characteristic of capitalist undertaking, it only suffices to say that large-scale farming was in fact a major unit of production under feudal social formation-mode of production. The other factors which

Polly Hill

outlines;

that the capitalist takes a.long view, "he is

not reasonably hampered by the demands made on him by members of his wider family or lineage etc...must altogether be discounted for the

same reasons. We therefore feel that the study remains in a theore¬

tical vacuum save what the author's ^- "a plea for indigenous econo¬

mics".

This study in the first part deals with an outline of the

development of agrarian capitalism in Ghana as a whole during the colonial and post-cólonial period, and the second part is a case

study of a region; Ejura in the same country in certain spheres, the overlapping óf some facts has become unavoidable since the case study

is nothing but a reflection of the whole situation although in a restricted _area.

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AGRARIAN CAPITALISM; THE ERA OF COLONIALISM

Prior to the penetration of colonial power, the ^economy of

the Gold Coast was already in the process of integration into the world capitalist system mainly through the exportation of labor- power through slave trade and the production of agricultural products particularly palm oil which came into prominence after the decline and end of the slave trade, and the extraction of gold and ivory.

Trade in palm oil production became the principal agricultural item of trade in the country from 1850 onwards. Cocoa was introduced into the Gold Coast only in 1815.

When the Geld Coast was colonized of formally in

1874,

the

colonial mode of

production,

which in its turn necessitated the de¬

velopment of capitalism in

agriculture,

expressed itself in several ways. The colonial mode of production should be understood here as

"the circuit" through which capital was drained out of the colonies in the form of bullion, consumption goods, raw materials and so on.

The financing of primary accumulation outside the colonial world was

their chief historical function....and it transmitted _{to the} colonies the pressures cf the accumulation _process in the metropolis without

unleashing any corresponding expansion in the of

production.^

In the sphere of

agricutlure,

in order to secure its objective of unlimited

expansion,

it resorted to expropriation of native land,

which set the ground for further development of capitalism in _agri¬

culture,

promotion of cash _crops and establishment of plantations ^run by employed wage labour.

Once the colonial administration established itself, ^one of

the problems that arrested its attention was the expropriation of native land. So the question of land tenure and land ownership was a crucial problem to the administration. It used legal and extra legal means to control both the land and the traditional chiefs.

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Page 5.

The first attempt

to control, native, land, was made in 1876, which

tjyOrdinance

established their right as sovereign power to Eminent Do¬

main. The

preamble of the measures states that "it is expedient that

provision should be made regulating the acquisition of lands for the ^5/

service Of the

Gold Coast colony, and the methods of holding lands".—'

Although this was

obvicus-ly an experiment on the possibilities of expro¬

priation

Mac Phee believes that "there was no suggestion as to the go¬

vernment laying

claim to the direct ownership of all lands, but simply

a claim on their

part to acquire land compulsorily where public need

so

demanded.—^

^However,

he continues to say that "at the same time the

government paid compensation to the expropriated for the value of crops

and

permanent fixtures destroyed, but nothing was to be paid in respect

of the land

itself. (p,142) Of course the final objective of such, an

expropriation was

for the direct exploitation of the land resources,

(crops

or

minerals) on a capitalist basis with the dispossessed and

displaced

peasantry selling its labor power.

The intent was made

still more clear, with the proposed Crown

Lands Bill cf

1894» 'The aim of the bill was to "vest waste lands,

forest lands and

minerals in the queen...for the use of the govern-

7/

ment of the

colony,-'-' This meant the alienation of land to British con¬

cessionaires who

with the aid of capital and skill exploit the resource

of the country for ^a

primary accumulation that is directed to the out¬

side;

namely, Great Britain. Since there was no "waste land" as such,

the Bill did not

meet

any

success. In the Gazette of October 1895>

a notification that

"no documents transferring land would be recognized

by the

government unless they bore the signature of the Governor" was

put into

effect. To make the control of land complete the colonial

administration

introduced

a new

Ordinance in an effort to settle the

problem once

and for all. The aim of the new lands Bill was to

"provide for

the

proper

exercise of their powers by those entrusted

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Page

6.

•

w-Lth the disposal of public

lands, and to prevent the improvident

creation of interests therein and rights

thereover".-' The idea-was

to control the chiefs, who in

turn controlled the land. As might

%e' expected,

"the chiefs resisted. When, in 1900

an

ordinance was

passed and.under it" the Supreme

Court

was

to enquire whether the

-grantors were the native owners

of

the

land, whether the

^area

fell

within the prescribed limit of five square miles

for mining

conces¬

sions .and twenty square miles for other concession,

whether the

prescribed term of 99 years was exceeded,

whether the consideration

was adequate and whether the statutory rights reserved to the

natives

were included in the

deed".-^

^So finally, the strategy

of controlling

those-who controlled the land i.e. the chiefs became successful., By 1951 "the chiefs had given away more

than 137

sq.

miles.

The introduction of cocoa in tho Gold Coast as a cash crop in the later part of the 19th century ^was still to have far-reaching

consequences on the social division of labor. Cocoa became attrac¬

tive since the wealth that the chiefs derived from slave trade was

stopped in the latter part of the 19th century. Likewise, the colo¬

nial .government promoted the cocoa culture by giving free extension

services experimenting on best species and establishing botanical gardens. The demand for cocoa in Europe was high at the time and this

boosted production. The communal ownership of land was not well suited

to _cocoa production since cocoa trees require three to five years to nature and with a life span of over 50 years and this form of owner¬

ship had to change by necessity. The cocoa farmer needed security

of tenure and "perpetual and undivided proprietorship". So this ten¬

dency meant the end of conmunalism and tribal authority as such, and

the introduction of private rights in land. As will bè shown in the subsequent chapters the communal form of ownership is still under¬

going radical change by the introduction of state farms,

plantatioh,etc.

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Page 7.

The development of cocoa as a cash _crop also induced _many

more farmers to migrate. According to Polly Hill's account the idea of migration was already familiar because of palm oil producd- tion which is a fore-runner to cocoa as a planted perennial three crop. The huge system of group purchase of tract of land and then

sub-dividing it started to be practiced as the migrant cocoa farmers needed security. Some of the migrant cocoa farmers had first to work

as laborers before they could acquire a farm of their own. The effect of migration on rural class formation based on a progressive concen¬

tration of

land,

was

direct,

and Polly Hill says: "one of the most important characteristics of the migration is itself perpetuating nature. Farmers became accustomed to investing a large part of the profits from one land in the purchase cf

another,

so that in the course of time, the ordinary migrant farmer ^came to own some three or four separate lands

(acquired

by himself and his

forbears)

while extraor- dinary farmers owned _many more."—'10/

Furthermore,

thé colonial administration and expatriate busi¬

ness - mainly British offered jobs outside the agricultural sector.

A new social group fo proto-bureaucrats began to emerge. The admi¬

nistration offered not only clerical and teaching jobs and to a few higher administrative posts, but also employed manual and technical workers through its transport and public works department. So did the mining companies. Already in the 1930s in the Gold Coast a

highly stratified society had emerged. A.W.

Cardinal,

the census officer in 1931 identified although in an impressionistic manner the

following groups:

a)

peasant proprietors cultivating solely for them¬

selves and their families

b)

peasant proprietors cultivating crops for sale and export

c)

hired laborers

d)

employers of labour and non

working land

holders, e)

distribution agents, buyers, middle men,

transport.owners,

transport

employees,porters

etc,—'11/

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Page 8. 7 -

•?

The colonial mode of production found it necessary to develop

cash crop for purposes of export and was said earlier palm oil gained importance from 1850 onwards. It reached its peak of production in

1884 when some

20,000

tons of palm oil and

40,000

tons of palm kernel

were exported. This is the highest of oil palm export ever to "be attained. Although it remained relatively the most important of the cash crops it went into a gradual decline from the peak reached in 1884.—12/ At ahout 1920 oil palm yielded to cocoa as the leading ex¬

port crop of Ghana. In 1885 only 121 lbs. of cocoa were exported to Europe and there after new farms were in the _process of establishment and by 1901 export amounted to

2,195

lbs. Other ^crops like rubber

and cotton were also being promoted for purposes of export. In 1880 only 0.54 tons of rubber were exported and by 1889 this rose to 554

tons and by 1911 twelve rubber plantation companies were actively operating in Southern Ghana and Ashanti.

(p.48)

Cotton, although a late comer, its export rose from

44,000

lbs in 1902 to

487,343

lbs

in 1925»

(p.48)

Competition between the various cash crops, parti¬

cularly between palm oil and cocoa was inevitable. Such a competi¬

tion was a deliberate creation of the colonial government. In the main part forced by political consideration it was fearful of the

rising capitalist class of ^cocoa farmers which must be checked.

Trade returns from cocoa was rising fast between 1900 and 1914 and also thereafter.. Export value rose from a mere

£90,000

in 1900 to

£4,145,000 in

While this was on the one hand a reason for

satisfaction,

on the other hand it was also a source of profound con¬

cern if not disappointment. Kay outlines three reasons why this was so. He says firstly "to the extent that....cocoa was important and profits from its production accrued to

Ghanaians,

British capital ca¬

ptured ^a diminished share of the total profits that arose from the trade of the colony. Thus the coincidence of colonial _progress and the prosperity of British enterprise was far from complete. Secondly,

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Page 9.

Ghanaian capital competed with British capital for resources such as labor and the provision of transport facilities by the staté, and prevented its expansion in sectors of the _economy where it might otherwise1 have settled.. Thirdly, the capitalist organization of co-

"coa production acted as a dissolvent on the "traditional" structures of Ghanaian sooiety through which the British would have liked to ex- .

ercise their _power: indirect rule.—'14/ Thus forced by the dialectics

of the

situation,

the colonial government made efforts to stimulate the production of palm oil which was described ^as the "next-best- product" on a commercial basis. The first attempt was to organize farmers who own palm oil land so that they ^may supply palm oil. fruit through associations or cooperatives. In addition they were also en¬

couraged to subscribe to a fund to purchase machinery and to provide the necessary buildings for a factory. .This strategy failed and a Palm Oil Bill was passed to _encourage the planting of the tree by encouraging capitalists to erect modern machinery for the extraction of oil from the tree crop.

The Niger Company devised a "small type of unit factor". The United África Company also opened a mill with an annual capacity cf 3,000 tons of fruit in the Eastern Region and in three months time it

1 K/

milled 353 tons of which 197 tons.were supplied by

farmers.—^

Another mill in the Western region dealt with 5041 tons of fruit in 1935 and produced 777 tons of oil palm.

However,

palm oil.production ^never

reached the level which the colonial government aspired in spite of its efforts by organizing

farmers,

subsidizing companies and. itself nursing about

40,000

palm seed nuts in .the 1950s,

Also,

the interest of the colonial government was not

merely

in the diversification of agriculture but a strategy of non-industria¬

lization. What ever was to be achieved by diversification might as well have been achieved by industrialization. A commission set up in 1948 put the point bluntly, "At every turn we were pressed with the cry of industrialization. We doubt very much if the authors of

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Page 10.

this"cry really understood more

than their

^vague

desire for something

that promised" wealth and high standard

of life. Apart from the possi-

hil"ities of a hydro-olcdtric scheme...the

establishment of

any

heavy

industry on the Gold Coast capable of finding an

export market must

re¬

main a dream...with an enervating climate

(!)

in

the torrid

zone,

lack¬

ing coal and other basic minerals the

prospect is

so

barren that not

even the greatest enthusiast could suggést to us a methôd

Of accomplish-

•17/

ment,—u Therefore, no wonder that a

colonialism that has refused it¬

self the function of accumulation by means of industrial capitalism had

to rely on and develop agrarian capitalism as a method of extraction

of surplus from the peasantry.

As.early as I89O the colonial government had opened its all-

purpose botanical garden in Aburi where all kinds of comraer'ical crops

were being experimented. A decade later the number of botanical gar¬

dens grewsup,to\ three and in the early nineties cotton growing was highly encouraged and experts of the British Cotton Growing Association tried

to develop the crop on the Aburi stations. By 19^3 large scale nursery trials had been undertaken at Accra, Ada, Keta. By

1904

experimental

farms had been established at Labolabo

(105 acres),

and in the Volta

district

(27 acres).

The government started a cotton

plantation

of

10G acres in 1911. All told, by

1924

^a

total of 25 agricultural sta-

tions were opened up with a total acreage of 5300 acres.—'

18/

In addi¬

tion, ^a number of other stations ^were opened later in the years

after

1925. Although what has already been said need"not be repeated again

while talking about agricultural station, it is'worthwhile

to

note

th t

until 1937 there was no single agricultural stations.in the cocoa belt

proper at which research could be carried out on the requirement of the

crop.

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Page 11,

In addition to the agricultural stations cooperative organi¬

zations were encouraged1 and organized as a tool for the promotion of capitalism in agriculture. What the colonial government adopted in

the 1930s fitted well to the policy that was laid almost a decade

ago. It stated "few local individuals have the initiative to install

the necessary machinery

(for

palm oil

extraction)

and even if they

have there are many who are affluent enough to purchase the machinery themselvess or have a sufficiently large ^area of palms

to

justify them doing so.... It is proposed therefore that groups of farmers who own oil palm land and are prepared to supply fruits to a factory should

form themselves into associations or cooperatives societies for the purpose. They .should subscribe to a fund to purchase machinery and

to provide the necessary buildings for a factory. Money ^so subscribed

should be creditod to each individual or family and his or their share

in the factory will be in proportion to the amount subscribed and they

will receive interest on it annuall Cooperative societies for

oil palm were however sporadic and the movement in the Gold Coast con¬

sisted by and large cocoa societies. By 1945 there were no more than 150 primary societies with

6,100

members and this rose to 454 coopera- tives in 1955 with

40,000 members.—'

20/ Between 1944 end

1956

the coope¬

rative movement issued loans to members in excess of £2

1/4

million

for the purchase of agricultural tools, powered fishing boats, payment

to agricultural wage worker, building storage facilities etc. Such

institutions like the Agricultural Loans Board, Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board, Cocoa Purchasing Company played no little part in the process.

In 1957, well over £3 million was owed by farmers to the Cocoa Pur-

21/ chasing Campany alone.—'

It ought to be added at this point that the very development

of cocoa in particular as a cash crop for export gave rise to a new class of rural _money lenders who operated in conjunctions with foreign buying companies. Gorst observes; "The bulk of the crop was bought

from farmers by strongly established European firms, operating through

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Page 12.

»

a complicated system of African buyers. Thousands _{of pounds} were advanced annually to these

buyers,

so that they might pay cash to

farmers or in.many cases to lesser buyers. With the increase- of

comi3etitions the farmers was pressed to part with this produce at

a progressively earlier stage. Advances were pressed on the farmers in the off-season to be repaid in prepared cocoa beans

(usually

at

half the market

price)

at harvest time. Admittedly in some cases the farmers' need for credit was

genuine,

but the rate of interest was exorbitant and the consequently reduced money yield of the harvest would send the farmer again to the

middleman/money-lender

during the following ^season.

Although lack of data for conditions of agricultural workers during this period, sets certain limits to the analysis, now it is not difficult to note that the agrarian society was being polarized mainly into two groups whereby at one end a cocoa - palm oil rural kulak aided and taking advantage of cooperatives bank loans - insecti¬

cides and better seed services was forming and consolidating itself,

while on the other hand a class of agricultural wage-workers, displaced migrant farmers and workers were being formed. Also, at the same

time,

through services of mechanisms ranging all the way from the _money

lender/middleman

to the marketing boards, the Gold Coast farmer was

being drawn into the price savings of the world market system which by

remote control as it were determined his fates low price for his pro¬

duce

(cocoa,

oil palm

etc.)

and high price for imported goods.

When, in 19579 the British finally pulled out of the country,

Ghana _{had every} mark of underdevelopment. It suffered, "in particular,

from "acute form of structural dislocation characteristic of ^an open and dependent economy. Production and consumption were not integrated

within the country but through external trade. Thus the colony ex¬

changed commodities which it produced but did not consume or even fully

process such as cocoa, manganese and gold, for other, mainly manufac¬

tured goods that it did consume, but did not and in _{many cases} could

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Page

13.

not produce itself.i=—' So, ^{as a} result food importation of

rice,

wheat,

fish',

"beef and pork, meat, sugar, grew

steadily

up

to

1957 and'right through

1§6Í.

Statistics indicate that the value of imports for rice rose from

£117,600

in 1934 to

£2,515,000

in

1961.

Por the same period wheat flour import value rose from

£70,500

to

£3,116,000,"for

meat the rise was from

£13,800

to

£306,000,

for fish

from

£27,100 to £1 ,316,000

and for sugar from

£54,100

to

£2,690,000,---•/

Then' what could the agricultural policy of the new government which has inherited such structural dislocation and which at the sane time has proclaimed to tread along the "socialist" path, hut the promotion

of large scale farms run hy the state and which _may he called state capitalist f<;.rms.

Agrarian Capitalism: The Era of Political Independence:

In essence the agricultural policy.of the new government which among other things advocated for tho development of agriculture along capitalist lines, was not radically different from that of the colo¬

nial government. A few years after the new government came to power it embarked on a programme of large-scale and mechanized farming.

Por this _purpose it organized ^a number of institutions-like the State Farms

Corporation,

the Cooperative farms under the United Ghana -"

Farmers Cooperative

Council,

the Agricultural Wing of the Workers

Brigade,

and the Young Farmers' League. The _expressed -objective was of course to revolutionize agriculture through mechanization and di¬

versification.

The State Farms

Corporation,

formed in

1962,

with the objective

of increasing food production and the development of cash crops as well took-over the old agricultural stations and in addition it esta¬

blished large-scale state farms and live stock projects in many parts

of the country. It started with 42 farms which previously were run

by the defunct department of Agriculture and a private rubber plantatic

Cs/2544-17

Page 14.

The immédiate rise it gave to the employment of agricultural wage workers was almost phenomenal. By

1965,

the State Farms Corporation

alone employed

20,000

agricultural

workers.-*^/ ^(IILC

^Report

^p,8)

^By

1966 the number ,of farms grew to 105- Although figures are not avail¬

able for number and type of machinery, the state farms used mechanized farming to a great extent. .The State Farms Corporation'alone acquired

•

345,080

acres,

cleared 90,645

acres and by

I966

the area it put under

cultivation was

59,580. The

area that is put under

cultivation,

when compared with the ^area acquired _, is of course

small,

but to put al¬

most .sixty thousand, acres under large-scale farming where only ^very

little existed before is quite significant. There area comprised of

21,500

acres of food crops, like maize, rice, cassava, potatoes, etc.,

while on 48O acres were planted vegetables such as pepper, tomatoes

and onions. Permanent _crops

(oil

.palm, rubber.,

banana, coconut)

^were

established on

34,49-0

acres of land. Semi-permanent crops like plan¬

tain and pineapples were grown on 810 acres. Also grown was cotton

on

14,000 acres,—^

So, as could be seen from these figures the im¬

portance given to commercial crops was indeed very significant. About-

60<f>

of the total area cultivated was devoted solely to commercial crops When a change in the policy of the subsequent governments reduced the number of

farms,

it was at first thought that the move was definitely anti-large scale farming run by the state. However the new organiza¬

tion in charge of the state farms pursued the same policy. As a re¬

sult in

1972, 13,530

acres were planted with food _crops while for the

same year

16,367

^acres of land were devoted to growing commercial crops

Likewise, in its use of available fund it favoured the development of

cash crops, and it drew loans from the two agricultural development

banks a total of

^1.90

million for this purpose. For the same period

(December 1972)

it drew a loan of merely

j2Í89O,000 for Operation

Feed- yourself Programme ^- a programme designed to increase food production.—

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Page 15.

Goinê "back to the Nkrumah period, the cooperative

Farms

which

were under the UGFCC-acquired

339,610

^acres

and put under

^crops

18,413

acres. On the _average each cooperative society cultivated 21.2 acres.

The cooperatives thus removed the isolation of the small holder from capital and made such services like clearing, building and harvesting

and the provision of seeds and fertilizers much simpler. In'1964 there

were already 992 cooperatives all over Ghana.

State run institutions had a total of 919 tractors,

1087

tillers

and cultivators 32 combines, 20 corn-husking machines, several lorries

and 95

trailers.-^-/

^{In Ghana as a whole the} speed with which machinery overlacking agriculture was fast. Between

1952-56

there were only

101

tructors,

this rose to

161

in

1961,

to

2234

in

1964,-^//'

^{From this}

we can safely conclude that capital was progressively dominating agri¬

culture in Ghana during this period and that a significant part was

ploughed

by

the State Farms.

The Agricultural. Wing .of .the Worker's Brigade whose objective it was to train unemployed men, employed more than

10,000

agricultural

workers. There were a__total of 47 stations all over the country. The

workers' Brigade acquired

286,877

^acres and planted

19*140

acres. The

young farmers league'mainly intended for mid-school leavers had 37

30/

'

stations,——' When the Hkrumah government was overthrown in 1966 the farms were by and large taken either by the state once .again or in

some cases transferred, to private companies like Firestone which ac¬

quired the rubber estates. The new government, although it denounced

the steps taken by the previous government, it was itself rather out¬

spoken about its objective. The Agricultural Committee, of the National Liberation

Council,

as the new government called itself, recommended:

"The state should in particular, invest in projects requiring large

investments with long,pay-off..'periods, which the private entrepreneur

may not be to undertake on an equal commercial scale...,. It is there¬

fore envisaged, that the state enterprises would be organized to produce

CS/2544-

17 Page 16.

a considerable percentage of the essential agricultural raw materials needed to promote the expansion of the industrial sector, ^on the other

hand the production of foods should generally be discouraged by the state."—'

31/

The government was short-lived to see its _program realized.

However,

as the agricultural statistics were to reveal later in the 1970s, there ^was no noticeable change in the trend. Next, ^we shall

therefore deal with the years between 1970 and 1973 for which period better data is available. Here we shall mainly be concerned with how,

at the national level there is a decrease in the production of certain but basic food crops is accompanied by an increase in the production of cash crops also identifying the food crops that have attained com¬

mercial value and finally to look into the position of agricultural

workers.

The following table shows area under cultivation for the various crops for the years 1970 and 1972:

I97O Area 1972 Arei¹ , Area increase

Type of Crop in acres in acres or decrease

Stagur cane

6,000 13,000

^'

7,000

Rubber ^{— — 1 —}

0 oconut

90,000 87,000

^•

-3,000

Orange

10,000 34,000

^■

24,000

Oil palm

44,000 264,000

^•

220,000

Groundnuts

242,000 224,000

769,000

'

-18,000

Maize

900,000

^'

-131,000

Guinea corn

600,000 490,000

^'

-110,000

Millet

615,000 433,000

^•

-182,000

Rice

136,000 133,000

^■

-3,000

Yam

426,000 324,000

^»

-102,000

Cocoyam

888,000 575,000

^■

-313,000

Cassava

805,000 840,000

^'

35,000

Plantain

1,421,000 676,000 -745,000

Pepper

69,000 99,000

^•

-30,000

Tomatoes ^.

46,000 63,000

^'

17,000

Garden _eggs

10,000 26,000

^•

16,000

0 kro

69,000 107,000

^•

38,000

fruits and others 5.000 64.100 ^' 59.100

Source: Report on Ghana sample Census of Agriculture 1970, Vol.1

2. Minstry of Agriculture, Economics and Marketing Division:

Report on Current Agricultural Statistics.

c

s/2

5^4-17 Page 17.

The above table clearly indicates that there was a positive growth in the area cultivated for commercial crops like sugar-cane oil palm, ^orange. The area under cultivation for sugar-cane was more than doubled within the three years period, while the ^area under

orange trees increased by ^mere than

30%.

The area under oil palm

also increased by almost six fold bringing the total area under cul¬

tivation of this crop to

204,000

by 1973. The only exception among the cash crops, which in 1973 showed a decrease in the area of cul¬

tivation was coconut, which indicates that farmers ^are gradually shifting to other types of cash crops. The same can be said of vege¬

tables which showed a net increase over the three years period under consideration. The total area that was devoted for the cultivation of vegetables like _pepper, tomatoes, garden eggs, okro etc. in 1970

was

199j000

acres which ^by 1972 rose to

359)000

acres. Vegetables

are grown by and l^rge in the vicinity of towns which are the major

consumers of such products. Pood items like maize, guinea corn,

millet, rice, plantain were grown on a much less acreage in 1972 than in 1970 - area under millet fell .down, by

182,000

acres; rice by 3000

acres and yam Dy 102,000 acres. The decrease in area for such crops like rice, maize and guinea corn is made by small holders since large-

scale farms have brought more acreage under these same crops. Today

therefore large scale farms cultivate

23%

of

the

^area under millet

2,7%

of the area under maize and about

1%

of the area under guinea corn.

The large scale farms have also monopolized the production of cash crops like rubber and increasing their share in the production of oil

palm, cultivating

6%

of the area, coconut

13%

of the total area and

sugar cane en more than

50%

of the ^area under sugar cane.

32/

It should further be added that commercial agriculture was created a home market for capitalism. The agricultural workers, who

are by and large now being paid in cash, buy the material elements

with which to reproduce themselves and this has furnished a market for capitalist product. The rural capitalist also, apart from his personal

Cs/2544-17

Page

18.

consumption, needs ^mere and more modern means of production as

agrarian capitalism develops. Hence the use of fertilizers for instance, in Ghana grew along with the development of agrarian capi¬

talism. In 1971 Ghana imported

5>500

tons of fertilizers of all

kinds valued at

/301,600.

^In 1972 import ^rose to

22,669

tons valued

at

f

1

,649,419,

an almost five fold increase. I11 1973,

(which

is

not yet

over)

import rose to the high figure of

32,366

tons valued at

/1,662,045. Although

figures are not available for successive years for the consumption of agricultural machinery, the gross data can give us a satisfactory proof of the fact that the development of com¬

mercial agriculture created a home market for capitalism. Also, by

1972, 311

^-heavy agricultural machines like tractors, bulldozers etc.

were in the hands of private

individuals,

while the Mechanization and Transportation Division of the Ministry of Agriculture commanded not less than 148 heavy agricultural

machineries.-^/

^{Since the wide use}

of heavy agricultural machinery is justifiable on large scale

farms,

this directly meant the concentration of the means of production into

tie lianas of a few rural capitalists, the dispossession of peasant

farmers and consequently being turned to wage workers as

wili

^be shown in the case study of Ejura district.

As was earlier said, the growth of large scale farms and the commodity production of certain crops necessitated the employment of wage labour on farms. Figures are available only for 1970 and for •

this reason growth in the labour power employed ^{over a} period of time

cannot be measured with ease. Even the available statistics have certain limitations. One of the difficulties arise from the fact that the 1970 census defines an agricultural worker as "permanent" if

he has worked for at loast six months of the year, "temporary" if he

has worked for a period of onu and six months and "casual" if he has worked for a total of less than one month during the yec_r. Such a classification of workers is of course arbitrary and unscientific, and

it. is employed only for the sake of convenience. For the moment, since