Mechanised Agriculture and Medium-Scale

MECHANISED AGRICULTURE AND MEDIUM- SCALE FARMERS IN NORTHERN GHANA: A SUCCESS OF MARKET LIBERALISM OR A PRODUCT OF A LONGER HISTORY? Kojo S. Amanor, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. WP 23 Working Paper March 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study is part of a collection of studies on agricultural mechanisation in Africa conducted as part of the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) programme, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). This research was conducted with funding from UK aid of the UK government. The findings and conclusions contained are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the UK government or DFID. The field research was carried out with the support of two research grants from the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. I am grateful for the assistance of Iddrisu Azindow in conducting the field survey in 2017 and to the participation of both Iddrisu Azindow and Aliu Aminu in field visits in 2016 and 2017. I am grateful for comments made on an earlier draft by Pauline Peters. 2 Working Paper 023 | March 2019 ACRONYMS ADC Agricultural Development Corporation AMSEC Agricultural Mechanisation Service Centre CPP Convention People’s Party FAO Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations GSSP Ghana Strategy Support Program IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute IMF International Monetary Fund ISSER Institute of Social, Statistical and Economic Research NGO non-governmental organisation NLC National Liberation Council NRC National Redemption Council PP Progress Party SG 2000 Sasakawa Global 2000 UGFCC Union of Ghana Farmers Cooperative Council USAID United States Aid Agency for International Development Working Paper 023 | March 2019 3 CONTENTS Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 5 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 6 2 Induced innovation and mechanisation: a theoretical framework ............................................ 8 3 Contemporary patterns of mechanisation within northern Ghana .......................................... 10 4 Mechanisation and the development of commercial agriculture in northern Ghana ............ 17 5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 22 6......................................................................................................................................................... 23 References ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Tables Table 1 Land holdings in select communities in the Northern Region Table 2 Distribution of land holdings by gender Table 3 Availability of fallow land Table 4 Fallowing strategies used by farmers Table 5 Main crops planted Table 6 Use of inputs, mechanised services, and hired labour on maize farms Table 7 Use of inputs, mechanised services, and hired labour on rice farms Table 8 Use of inputs, mechanised services, and hired labour on groundnut farms 4 Working Paper 023 | March 2019 SUMMARY In recent years, the significant uptake of tractor- of the areas recording high rates of uptake of tractor- ploughing services in Ghana has been heralded ploughing services in recent years occur in areas that as a success of market liberal policies. It has been were cleared by the state in the 1960s and 1970s, argued that market reforms have enabled medium- rather than in new frontier areas that have been scale farmers to expand their operations and invest recently stumped to enable tractor ploughing. in tractors, which they also hire out to smallholders, enabling a significant expansion in agricultural outputs Before structural adjustment, state agricultural of both categories of farmers. This is often contrasted interventions were not only concerned with building with the failures of state-led agriculture policies before state farms but also in encouraging the emergence of structural adjustment. However, this argument is commercial agriculture. Within the era of a liberalised based upon the assumption that with structural markets programme, non-market interventions adjustment and the rolling back of state services, past continue to exist, sometimes initiated by non- policies on mechanisation disappeared and left no governmental organisations (NGOS), to encourage footprints in agrarian production. uptake of modern technologies by farmers. This paper argues that contemporary medium-scale This study argues that there are uncanny farmers are not the creation of market liberalisation resemblances between the areas in which there policies, but share many similar characteristics with are high uptakes of mechanisation and those areas the commercial farmers of the 1970s, including roots targeted by state agricultural policies in the 1960s and in the urban civil servant and trader class fractions. 1970s, and between the medium-scale commercial Thus, many features of the past agrarian structure farmers rooted in urban civil servants and traders that continue to persist in spite of market liberalisation. are proclaimed to be the success of recent market The study is critical of contemporary approaches to policies, and the commercial farmers of the 1970s mechanisation based on revised and updated theories rooted in political and bureaucratic elites. Market of induced technology transformation, and advocates liberalisation resulted in the privatisation of state for an approach rooted in political economy and agricultural services and tractors: it did not lead to the historical analysis. disappearance of tractors and tractor services. Most Working Paper 023 | March 2019 5 1. INTRODUCTION The development of agricultural mechanisation policies nations with rising agricultural engineering industries are in Africa has been characterised by three phases providing bilateral loans and credits for African states (Mrema, Baker and Kahan 2008). In the first phase, from to purchase agricultural machinery at concessionary the 1950s to the 1970s, mechanisation was seen as an prices, most notably China, Brazil, and India. important part of agricultural modernisation, particularly in facilitating the emergence of a class of large-scale Two main approaches to mechanisation can be seen ‘progressive’ commercial farmers, who were receptive in the recent literature. The first contrasts the decline of to modern technology, unlike the conservative peasant mechanisation within Africa during the 1990s with the farmers. advances in Asia. Mrema et al. (2008) argue that a global correlation exists between uptake of mechanisation In the second phase, from the 1990s to the 2000s, and agricultural growth. They argue that the demise of mechanisation was given low priority in agricultural mechanisation policies in Africa during the 1980s was development policy and was widely regarded as a result of the politicisation of policy rather than the inappropriate for the main objectives of promoting failure of mechanisation. They argue that the decline more intensive production among smallholders, who of agricultural mechanisation in the 1980s was related were regarded as the main social force for agricultural to changing agricultural development paradigms, development (Mrema et al. 2008; Binswanger and which were brought about by economists working with Pingali 1988). Lipton (1977) argued that the promotion theories of induced innovation in smallholder agriculture. of mechanisation was a policy distortion by dominant These economists began to challenge the frameworks political interests within the state that promoted of agricultural engineers on the role of mechanisation in ‘urban bias’ and ‘elite capture’ of agriculture by urban agricultural development (ibid.). bureaucrats investing in commercial agriculture. Mrema et al. (ibid.) argue that the uptake of The main focus in international agricultural development mechanisation in Africa from the 1960s to the 1980s policy during the 1980s and 1990s was on incremental was limited and experimental. It did not provide development and the adaptation of technology to the sufficient data on which to make sweeping conclusions conditions of smallholder farmers. During the 2000s, the about mechanisation. They argue that the field studies pendulum has swung back to promoting commercial that these economists built their theories on were agriculture through medium-scale commercial farmers, contentious and did not incorporate a sufficiently long- albeit through the market rather than state patronage. term analysis of changing patterns of mechanisation The emergence of medium- and large-scale farmers within Africa in order to gain a deep perspective on is now seen as reflecting the success of agricultural the development of mechanisation before the 1980s. policies rather than elite capture (Jayne et al. 2016). Furthermore, while these economists proposed that The new policy narrative argues that the only feasible animal traction was a more appropriate alternative, way for Africa to develop its agriculture is by promoting this has failed to take off in Africa. This approach commercial agriculture, agribusiness solutions, and essentially seeks to revalidate the original framework the uptake of new proprietary seeds and

Load more