VALORACIÓN DEL PACIENTE BASADA EN LA TEORÍA DE VIRGINIA HERDERSON

Ghanaian agricultural development policies have deep colonial roots, stretching as far back as 1874 (Figure 2.1). Whilst the British established the Gold Coast Colony in 1874, the Northern Territories were not brought under colonial rule until 1902 (Lund, 2003). Initial colonial policies focused upon the production of crops that offered the greatest potential for export to Britain (Seini, 2002). The colonial government paid little attention to the production of non-commercial and staple food crops. Policy emphasis on export crops led to extensive infrastructural development in southern Ghana, where the moist semi-deciduous vegetation supported the production of cocoa and coffee (Plange, 1979). Very little colonial revenue was spent in the north and the area remained, and still continues to remain, relatively poor and under- developed (Al-hassan, 2013; Shepherd et al., 2004). The only way the north was integrated into the Gold Coast economy was through the provision of labour for southern-based plantation farms and mines (Austin, 2005), which in turn reduced labor availability for food production in the North.

Figure 2.1 Timeline of Major Events and Agricultural Policies in Ghana

In 1949, the Gold Coast government made the first attempt to improve agriculture in the Northern Territories. As part of a larger and ambitious country-wide program, the government established an Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC). The aim of the ADC was to encourage high-input agriculture in the food crop sector in the Northern Territories, and in the cocoa and rubber sub-sectors within the southern Gold Coast (Asuming-Brempong, 2003). The ADC was premised on the assumption that indigenous agriculture was inadequate to meet the needs of a growing population and the cash crop economy in the south. Population pressure was further considered to be a major reason for low agricultural productivity. The Gonja Development Corporation (GDC) was therefore established as part of the ADC to help ease population pressure and boost food production in the Northern Territories. Initially, the GDC targeted 500 households who were to be resettled from densely populated zones to areas with low population density (Frimpong-Ansah, 1991). These households were encouraged to go into mechanized cash cropping.

However, the project failed to meet its objectives. Among other reasons, it could not realize the initial target of reaching 500 households, as many farmers refused to leave the presumed overpopulated zones (Hilton, 1960). Further, many farmers refused to adopt the mechanized farming system. One study showed that the “types of heavy machinery brought in were not suitable for the hard soil conditions; they suffered frequent breakdowns and maintenance was poor. Skilled operators were lacking and the initial land preparation often took away the fertile top soils…The farmers thought they had better traditional knowledge of farming methods” (Frimpong-Ansah, 1991, p.83). After independence in 1957, the post- colonial government viewed the ADC as a misguided agricultural initiative. It had accumulated high levels of debt, but made little impact (Hilton, 1960). Both the GDC and ADC were subsequently closed down in 1957 and 1962 respectively.

The post-independence era saw a number of initiatives to encourage ‘modernization’ of agriculture in northern Ghana, including encouraging the use of fertilizers, hybrid seeds and irrigation. In 1965, the government established the Vea

Irrigation Scheme, an irrigated area of about 468 hectares, to support dry season farming in the Upper East Region. Another large-scale irrigation project, the Tono Irrigation Scheme, was established in 1975 to enhance the diffusion of technology to smallholder farmers in the Upper East Region. In addition, the government established the Ghana Seed Company in 1979 to produce and market improved seeds to farmers. In 1980, the government further initiated the Northern Region Rural Integrated Project (NORRIP) with external funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) (Seini and Nyanteng, 2003). The project had several phases, including an agricultural component that aimed at diffusing improved technology to small-scale farmers. Although a large number of farmers benefited from the project, it could not be sustained at the end of CIDA’s external funding in 1989 (Botchway, 2001).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ghana had a vibrant economy; it was the world’s leading producer of cocoa and exported close to 10 percent of the world’s gold (Konadu-Agyemang, 2000). A combination of factors, including government over-spending, a fall in cocoa prices, severe droughts and global oil price increase, led to a complete collapse of the economy in the early 1980s (Pearce, 1992). The government subsequently negotiated for a World Bank and International Monetary Fund Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in 1983. The SAP came with a loan of US$1.4 billion, with several conditionalities, including deregulation of both input and output markets (Pearce, 1992). The prices of most agricultural chemicals were increased in excess of over 40 percent per annum, between 1986 and 1992 (Asuming- Brempong, 1994). In 1990, the government eliminated guaranteed minimum prices for food crops such as maize and rice. Fertilizer subsidies were removed in June 1992, while all state marketing boards were also closed down. By August 1992, fertilizer importation and marketing had been privatized (Nyanteng and Seini, 2000).

The effects of structural adjustment were most severe for farmers in northern Ghana where incomes were low (Alderman and Shively, 1996). The removal of tariffs depressed domestic food production by exposing local farmers to a flood of cheap,

subsidized rice and maize from foreign producers. Many smallholders abandoned farming completely, while others switched to export crops that had higher marketing value and received greater credit support (Konadu-Agyemang, 2000). A World Bank report in 1993 confirmed the hardship on northern Ghanaian farmers, stating that “the deleterious effect [of price liberalization] on incomes (and welfare) may have been more severe among households in northern Ghana where agricultural production is based largely on food crops” (World Bank, 1993, p. 31).

Whilst farmers were still dealing with structural adjustment impacts, an international non-governmental organization called Sasakawa-Global 2000 (SG-2000) launched its operations in 1986 (Puplampu, 2003). The project aimed “to bring new agricultural technology to farmers in a rapid and dramatic fashion” (Tripp, 1993, p. 2010). SG-2000 supplied input credit packages to farmers and encouraged them to plant new crop varieties. The project started with 40 plots in 1986; which quickly increased to 1,500 in 1987; 15,000 in 1988; and 76,000 in 1989 (Al-Hassan and Poulton, 2009, p. 20). Whilst SG-2000 was not a government initiative per se, it received full governmental support, with government extension agents recruited to assist with the diffusion of technology to farmers (Puplampu, 2003; Tripp, 1993). In northern savannah Ghana, greater emphasis was placed on sorghum and maize.

In the first three years of SG-2000, maize and sorghum yields were remarkable, with farmers recording as high as a 40 percent increase in output (Puplampu, 2003). These results received widespread international press coverage, with the New York Times carrying news about ‘miraculous seeds’ in Ghana (Tripp, 1993). However, SG-2000 proved to be another failure. A key challenge was the issue of credit recovery; according to one report, loan recovery rates fell from 90 percent in 1987 to 44 percent in 1989 (Al-Hassan and Poulton, 2009). Moreover, the program was narrowly focused on a few strains of crops (maize and sorghum), and was found to be insensitive to the resource needs and risk capacity of small farmers. When the input credit package ceased as a result of poor loan recovery, all farmers reverted to local seeds and traditional methods of improving soil fertility (Amanor, 2011). The SG-

2000 program was therefore closed down in 2003. There is also evidence that SG- 2000 produced mixed results in other African countries (Howard et al., 2003; Keeley and Scoones, 2000).

Since the period after structural adjustment, there has been a continuity of high-input agriculture in Ghana. Under different policy initiatives, the government has placed a higher priority on agricultural technologies in order to double yields of farmers, with a focus on northern Ghana (National Development Planning Commission [NDPC], 2005). These initiatives include the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS), the Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP), and the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA). The primary thrust of the GPRS is ‘to achieve accelerated growth through modernized agriculture, led by a vibrant and competitive private sector’ (NDPC, 2005, p.29). The SADA program also aims to modernize agriculture in northern Ghana and orient farmers towards a larger market (Al-hassan, 2013). Since 2008, an Agro-Dealer Development Program (ADP) has been launched as part of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, supported by the Rockefeller and the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundations. As part of this initiative, about 2,400 agro-dealers have been trained to supply high-yielding seeds and fertilizers to farmers (International Fertilizer Dealer Center, 2011).

After more than half a century of pursuing these agricultural intensification initiatives, there continues to be deepening inequalities between northern and southern Ghana (Shepherd et al., 2004), while government circles continue to accept high-yielding technologies as the best way forward. In the remainder of this paper, we utilize a case study of maize to investigate whether and how farmers are responding to the mass promotion of input-intensive agriculture. Maize is a useful case study because it is a major staple crop in northern Ghana and the most widely grown cereal in Africa (McCann, 2005). Maize is also tightly linked to the promotion of inputs such as fertilizers, seeds and pesticides (Gage et al., 2012). In this paper, we use ‘landrace’ to refer to local seed varieties lacking formal crop improvement. In contrast, we use the term ‘hybrids’ to refer to cultivars of maize that have been

scientifically bred to have uniform and stable characteristics, as distinct from landraces (Villa et al., 2005).