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Ghana AGRICULTURE
Agriculture is Ghana's most important economic sector,
employing more than half the population on a formal and informal
basis and accounting for almost half of GDP and export earnings.
The country produces a variety of crops in various climatic zones
which range from dry savanna to wet forest and which run in eastwest bands across the country. Agricultural crops, including yams,
grains, cocoa, oil palms, kola nuts, and timber, form the base of
Ghana's economy.
Although Nkrumah attempted to use agricultural wealth as a
springboard for the country's overall economic development,
Ghanaian agricultural output has consistently fallen since the
1960s. Beginning with the drop in commodity prices in the late
1960s, farmers have been faced with fewer incentives to produce as
well as with a general deterioration of necessary infrastructure
and services. Farmers have also had to deal with increasingly
expensive inputs, such as fertilizer, because of overvaluation of
the cedi. Food production has fallen as well, with a decline in the
food self-sufficiency ratio from 83 percent in 1961-66 to 71
percent in 1978-80, coupled with a four-fold increase in food
imports in the decade prior to 1982. By 1983, when drought hit the
region, food shortages were widespread, and export crop production
reached an all-time low.
When the Rawlings government initiated the first phase of the
ERP in 1984, agriculture was identified as the economic sector that
could rescue Ghana from financial ruin. Accordingly, since that
time, the government has invested significant funds in the
rehabilitation of agriculture. Primarily through the use of loans
and grants, the government has directed capital toward repairing
and improving the transportation and distribution infrastructure
serving export crops. In addition, specific projects aimed at
increasing cocoa yields and at developing the timber industry have
been initiated. Except for specific development programs, however,
the government has tried to allow the free market to promote higher
producer prices and to increase efficiency.
Although the government was criticized for focusing on exports
rather than on food crops under the ERP, by the early 1990s the
PNDC had begun to address the need to increase local production of
food. In early 1991, the government announced that one goal of the
Medium Term Agricultural Development Program 1991-2000 was to
attain food self-sufficiency and security by the year 2000. To this
end, the government sought to improve extension services for
farmers and to improve crop-disease research. Despite the
statements concerning the importance of food crops, however, the
plan was still heavily oriented toward market production,
improvement of Ghana's balance-of-payments position, and provision
of materials for local industrial production. Furthermore,
following World Bank guidelines, the government planned to rely
more heavily on the private sector for needed services and to
reduce the role of the public sector, a clear disadvantage for
subsistence producers. In particular, industrial tree crops such as
cocoa, coffee, and oil palm seedlings were singled out for
assistance. Clearly, agricultural sectors that could not produce
foreign exchange earnings were assigned a lower priority under the
ERP.
The government attempted to reduce its role in marketing and
assistance to farmers in several ways. In particular, the Cocoa
Marketing Board steadily relinquished its powers over pricing and
marketing. The government, furthermore, established a new farmers'
organization, the Ghana National Association of Farmers and
Fishermen, in early 1991 to replace the Ghana Federation of
Agricultural Cooperatives. The new organization was to be funded by
the farmers themselves to operate as a cooperative venture at the
district, regional, and national levels. Although the government
argued that it did not want to be accused of manipulating farmers,
the lack of government financial support again put subsistence
producers at a disadvantage.
Data as of November 1994
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