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

Introduction

Since colonisation, the African continent has been a battleground between competing colonial nation state, imperial – and later corporate – capital, agribusiness and philanthro-capital interests to secure control over land and natural resources as the basis for wealth accumulation (Mamdani, 1987; Patel, 2013). These struggles continue to shape contemporary agriculture and food systems, with profound outcomes for smallholders and subsistence systems of farming (Kamara et al., 2019). Small-scale farming is frequently the target of agricultural development interventions, with national and international rhetoric deploying colonial narratives that ‘improvement’, ‘efficiency’, technological ‘innovation’ and other modernist tropes will be vital to establish corporate, business-oriented agriculture and food systems (McMichael, 2014).

These neo-colonial systems of power and the extraction of resources and wealth disrupt smallholder agriculture and food systems, with outcomes that concentrate economic expansion amongst both empire and in-country elites. At the same time, colonial forces drive food insecurity and poverty across the African continent, including by locking smallholder farmers into unequal global trading relationships (Mamdani, 1987). The legacies of this so-called modernisation of agriculture endure in postcolonial settings; demonstrated in the continuity of large-scale monoculture plantations, export agriculture, the spread of European-owned technological inputs, the theft of local and Indigenous intellectual property, and the destruction of traditional and Indigenous food ways (Patel, 2013). The African Green Revolution (GR) – the focus of this paper – is situated in the context of this colonial agenda.

The first wave of GR agricultural technologies was introduced across the African continent (alongside Asia, Central and Latin America) during the 1960s, and included capital-intensive high-yielding ‘improved’ maize varieties, ¹ chemical fertilisers and agrochemicals. These inputs were primarily directed towards smallholder farmers on the basis of claims they could increase per capita production, thereby fostering both food security and poverty reduction. Regardless of such claims – and increases in yields that were delivered in some regions and for some specific crops – rates of food insecurity and hunger continued to expand during the GR decades. Any increases in production that were realised did not translate into an ‘escape from hunger’ (see Vanhaute, in Patel, 2013).

Despite the limits of the first GR, a second wave of GR expansion emerged in the early 21st century, with a specific focus on the African continent. Following the global food crisis in the mid-2000s – resulting in acute food shortages and food insecurity worldwide, including across many countries in Africa – the World Bank and other global development actors called for increased investment in a new GR for Africa (Patel, 2013). This second GR was widely championed as providing a solution to hunger, as well as addressing the long-term structural inequalities affecting African economies. Proponents of the new GR in Africa argued smallholder farmers would sustain agricultural growth through access to farm inputs, alongside financial and agricultural service supports, as well as access to markets (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), 2017). Others argued that African countries with a strong history of agricultural commercialisation, such as Ghana, had a comparative advantage that could support positive outcomes from GR interventions (also see Frankema, 2014). Despite this optimism, others remained pessimistic; particularly given the failures of the earlier GR (see, for instance, Mckeon, 2014; Moseley et al., 2015).

In Ghana, the national government has collaborated with a diversity of international actors – including the AGRA, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and others – to drive structural changes in agricultural policies and market regulations to extend a second GR. Such changes include liberalisation of agricultural input and output markets, with outcomes that have positioned the convergence of seed, fertiliser and agrochemical companies, and alongside donors, as key drivers of Ghana’s GR. In the Brong Ahafo Region – widely referred to as the nations’ ‘food basket’, and the case study of this paper – this convergence of interests has expanded the uptake of GR interventions. Yet despite the increasing uptake of GR technologies in Ghana, there has been little research that analyses the local level experiences, perceptions and outcomes of its uptake (see Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Bezner Kerr, 2015; Vercillo et al., 2020).

Our paper contributes to this nascent literature by examining local-level socio-ecological impacts associated with adoption of specific GR technologies in the Brong Ahafo Region. Through a political ecology approach, we examine the complex and contested political narratives and ecological conditions in which smallholder farmers navigate decision-making related to the adoption of technical inputs and other new technologies. Drawing from an analysis of policy and other documents, alongside interviews and focus groups with smallholder farmers and government officials, we demonstrate the convergence of actors – including government, agribusiness, philanthropic organisations and international development organisations – in shaping this terrain. We argue there is a disconnect between the rhetoric deployed by these actors in promoting GR technologies, and the lived realities on the ground. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that GR technologies both reinforce – and drive new – forms of social and ecological inequalities.

Our paper now turns to set out the political ecology approach that has informed our analysis, and the historical context driving Ghana’s colonial and modernised agriculture and food system, in which the second GR is situated.

Political ecology approach

The future of agriculture and food systems on the African continent – as elsewhere – is grounded in a long-term battle between diverse interests and agendas. To contribute to understandings of this contestation – and its impacts – our analysis is informed by political ecology. Political ecology provides an historical, political, economic and ecological approach to understand human and environment interactions (Perreault et al., 2015; Schubert, 2005). Political ecology offers a framework to examine how power relationships shape environmental and livelihood outcomes, with a particular focus on development-related interventions (Peet and Watts, 2004; Robbins, 2012; Watts, 1983, 2016). Political ecology frequently takes the form of local-level studies of people, including particularly those whose livelihoods are predicated on agriculture and environmental resources.

Our paper is informed by political ecology to examine engagement with, and uptake of, GR technologies in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. This approach draws attention to the ways colonial processes and dynamics – including related to agriculture and food, as well as export and trade – endure in the contemporary period (Mathevet et al., 2015). Current engagement with GR technologies can thereby be situated within long-term historical politico-ecological processes of agricultural modernisation and landscape transformation (see Amanor, 2013; Amanor and Pabi, 2007). The continuities of this agricultural development trajectory – to which GR technologies are a further extension – sets the scene for ongoing technological promotion (Amanor and Pabi, 2007).

Scale has also historically characterised political ecology research (Peet et al., 2011; Robbins, 2012; Watts, 2000). Scale comprises spaces through which power systems and relations flow (Green, 2016; Brenner, 2001). For our analysis, we take scale to include those socially constructed spaces that are occupied by international, national and/or local actors, whose roles and activities intersect with GR, including as advocates, intermediaries and recipients. This approach enables us to analyse the power relations amongst various actors whose roles produce environmental outcomes and material consequences for smallholder farmers.

We now turn to provide the context for our political ecology analysis of GR technologies, including a brief background to agricultural modernisation in the Brong Ahafo Region in Ghana (our case study), and policy settings driving the uptake of GR technologies.

Context 1: agricultural modernisation in the Brong Ahafo region

The Brong Ahafo Region represents one of Ghana’s major food-producing zones. It produces 30% of Ghana’s staple foods, including maize, yam, cassava, beans, sorghum and cowpea, and, on this basis, is frequently referred to as the ‘food basket’ of Ghana (Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), 2014). The rise of Brong Ahafo as a food-producing region has a historical antecedence dating back to the colonial period.

The production of export crops was a long-standing focus of the British colonial administration, and was mostly concentrated in the high forest zones in the south of Ghana (Boafo and Lyons, 2019; Boafo et al., 2019). By comparison, food crop cultivation was relatively neglected in the region during the early colonial period (Boafo and Lyons, 2019; Boafo et al., 2019). Cocoa production – now one of the countries’ leading agricultural exports – only arrived in the region after 1900, particularly the Ahafo area.

The colonial government initiated infrastructure for food production in the region during the 1950s, including as a response to the rising cost of food, alongside the maize rust epidemic of 1949–1953 (Amanor, 2010). During this period, they set up experimental crop stations and large-scale state farms across selected regions, including Brong Ahafo. Each of these was later disrupted by national political independence in 1957.

By the early postcolonial period, many colonial interventions began to be revived. This included the re-introduction of a state farming model, as well as programmes that encouraged the use of high-inputs – including high-yielding improved maize varieties and other capital-intensive inputs – as part of the modernisation and commercialisation of agriculture. Centring agricultural modernisation as the pathway for development enabled the continuity of colonial power relations; including the dominance of an international structure of institutions and funding arrangements in shaping agricultural change (Amanor and Pabi, 2007).

Turning to the Brong Ahafo Region, two state farms were established in Wenchi and Branam. This occurred alongside development of modern infrastructure, synthetic input distribution depots, canning factories, irrigation infrastructure and the provision of mechanised ploughing services, as well as the construction of roads to facilitate market access (Amanor and Pabi, 2007). The introduction of these diverse supports drove significant changes across farming systems. Although the overthrow of the Nkrumah-led government in 1966 meant the state farming model was short-lived, farmers in the Brong Ahafo Region (and elsewhere in Ghana), were exposed – and structurally tied – to high-inputs (Amanor and Pabi, 2007).

During the early 1980s, Ghana – like other African countries – faced significant food shortages; circumstances tied to drought and bushfires that destroyed crops and reduced yields. In addition to these biophysical drivers, Watts (1983) has described an array of historical structural factors as central in driving famine in West Africa. These included the introduction of commodity production by British colonialists, thereby diverting attention from local food production, with outcomes that created the conditions for famine (Watts, 1983). Demonstrating this, at the same time as famine affected West Africa in the 1970s, the region continued to export peanuts to Europe (Moseley et al., 2015). The food shortfall created by an emphasis on export agriculture would later become an opportunity for an alliance of philanthropists and scientists to showcase their ‘innovations’ as a technological fix to the problem of food insecurity.

This commitment to a technological treadmill was demonstrated, for example, via an initiative sponsored by the philanthropist Ryoichi Sasakawa, ² in response to food shortages (Sasakawa Africa Association, 2015). The Sasakawa Global-2000 (SG-2000) programme – implemented in northern Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and the northern regions – relied upon the uptake of modern inputs and methods of production. As well as training at least 1000 agricultural extension officers, it worked with commercial agro-input dealers to distribute inputs to farmers on loan, as well as supporting the distribution of improved maize varieties to farmers and privatisation of agricultural services (Amanor, 2013). Technical skills, including planting in rows, chemical fertiliser applications, and a regime of weeding and harvesting, were also taught to farmers via demonstration farms. In a programme promoting zero-tillage, SG-2000 worked with global agri-chemical company Monsanto to introduce herbicides to farmers in Ghana; considered by some as the most successful initiative of SG-2000 (see Amanor, 2013). However, the adoption of ‘improved’ maize via a loan scheme could not be sustained, with farmers reverting to local varieties when the loans ended. This programme ended in 2003 when loan recovery became untenable.

The state farming model and SG-2000 have each left legacies that continue to shape agriculture in the Brong Ahafo Region, including the normalisation of high-inputs as well as the commercialisation of production relations. Several government agricultural programmes have continued to target this region, including by encouraging the adoption of GR technologies.

Context 2: policy drives the uptake of GR technologies

We now turn to briefly set out some of the key policy settings that have also assisted to drive GR technologies in Ghana.

We start with Ghana’s programme for structural adjustment and economic liberalisation. Initiated in the 1980s, this marked a turning point in Ghana’s agricultural development, including by integrating smallholder farmers into global input and output markets (Whitfield, 2018; Yaro et al., 2018). For the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), amongst others, the deregulation of rural markets and liberalisation of import markets would remove market distortions and ensure the efficient allocation of resources (Sowa, 1996). While input market policies were aimed at affecting land, credit, chemical fertiliser, seeds, machinery, human labour, and commodities used in farming, output market strategies were aimed at influencing output prices, producer prices, quantities of production, food distribution and trade. Overall, structural adjustment deregulated and privatised agricultural markets (Asuming-Brempong and Kuwornu, 2013). Liberalisation principles also positioned the private sector as a key player in transforming the agricultural sector (Asuming-Brempong, 2003; Asuming-Brempong and Kuwornu, 2013).

Structural adjustment also liberalised policymaking processes, with international development organisations and pro-market international donors, as well as national and international private sector actors each influential in agriculture-related policymaking. Development partners and donors were especially influential, including via their ability to provide financial assistance to the agricultural sector. Demonstrating this, donors have funded over 60% of the entire budget of Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), and 90% related to service and investment (Al-Hassan et al., 2014; International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 2017; World Bank, 2017). In addition, development partners wield power in agricultural policymaking via the provision of technical resources, including information related to policy formulation. For example, data is often translated into policy facts by development partners. The reliance on development partners for such technical expertise accords them power to influence agricultural policy processes and their outcomes.

Although development partners and donors have shaped agricultural policy over many decades, there has been a renewed interest following the call for a GR in Africa in the mid-2000s. Demonstrating this, an alliance of initiatives and actors was significant in shaping policy settings related to the new GR in Africa. The Rockefeller Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, USAID’s Feed the Future Programme, and the African Union’s Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), for example, have each played a significant role in building policy support for a private sector-led technological transformation of Ghana’s agriculture and food systems. The AGRA, ³ in particular, has been deeply entangled in policy reform processes, as well as sponsoring programmes to build the capacity of the private sector to deliver ‘productivity-enhancing’ technologies to African smallholder farmers.

Similarly, AGRA and USAID have sponsored programmes aimed at shaping Ghana’s fertiliser and seed policies. By framing food insecurity and poverty in Ghana as tied to low per capita agricultural production, and as directly related to smallholder’s failure to uptake productivity-enhancing technologies – such as inorganic fertiliser, agrochemicals and high-yielding seeds – these actors have been effective in positioning Africa’s GR as a technological fix. At the same time, market integration, and with the private sector as central in driving commercialisation of seed and chemical fertilisers, is positioned as vital. Demonstrating this, AGRA has described its contribution to the national fertiliser policy and Plant and Fertiliser Act as supporting 39 fertiliser-importing companies, 136 distributors, 1295 fertiliser retailers and 105 fertiliser products to register in Ghana (see also AGRA, 2017).

This brief review demonstrates some of the policy context shaping the uptake of GR technologies. It also demonstrates the influential role of political, philanthropic and business actors in creating and championing food security principally in terms of crop yields and market integration. We now shift from this context setting to introduce our case study: the Brong Ahafo Region.

Case study of Brong Ahafo region: Ghana’s ‘food basket’

Fieldwork for this research was conducted in Brong Ahafo, Ghana’s second largest region. Since the time of our research, Brong Ahafo has subsequently been divided into three administrative regions: Bono East, Brong Ahafo and Ahafo. ⁴ It comprises a vast tract of land (39, 5558 km²), and favourable agro-ecological characteristics for the development of both food and cash cropping. The region experiences two rainfall seasons annually, allowing for two farming seasons each year (Logah et al., 2013; Noora et al., 2017); the major farming season runs from March to July, while the minor season is August to December (Amanor, 2013). The dry season, or harmattan (between December and March) is often described as the off-farming season. The different agro-ecological zones that characterise the region enable the cultivation of a variety of crops, including cereals, tubers and vegetables, as well as cash crops including cashew, mango, citrus and cocoa (Boafo and Lyons, 2019; Boafo et al., 2019). These favourable conditions have attracted large migrant farmers from the northern sector of Ghana.

The region has been the focus of both historical and contemporary government and donor-sponsored agricultural development interventions (Amanor, 2009; Amanor and Pabi, 2007), and, reflecting this, it leads in the production of maize and cassava, both major staple crops across urban and rural Ghana (Amanor, 2013). Given its role as a major maize producer, the region has also been the hub for trials of ‘improved’ maize varieties over a number of years, developed by both local seed producers and foreign seed corporations.

The Brong Ahafo Region provides a context-specific case to explore the lived experiences of farmers and local actors related to the uptake of GR interventions. Research was conducted in four farming communities: Wenchi, Amponsahkrom, Kintampo and Nyakoma. The populations of Wenchi and Amponsahkrom were 42,300 and 2001, respectively, in 2010 (GSS, 2012). Wenchi is inhabited largely by Bonos (the indigenes and traditional owners of the land) and migrant ethnic groups including Dagaabas, Badu, Banda, Mos and Sisalas. Meanwhile, Amponsahkrom, which is about 5 km from Wenchi, is inhabited mainly by Dagaabas, migrant farmers from Laura in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Wenchi is one of two sites where the state farming model was deployed during the colonial and early postcolonial eras. The state farm in Wenchi has since been converted into the Wenchi Agricultural Station, where high-inputs and improved planting materials are trialled for adoption by farmers. The close proximity of Wenchi to Techiman – a major national market centre – also brings several advantages for agricultural production and agro-processing.

With its strategic location in the centre of Ghana, Kintampo serves as a transit point between the northern and southern parts of the country, and represents a key market centre for agricultural products, including, maize, yam and cassava. Like Wenchi, the ethnic composition of Kintampo is heterogeneous, including significant Mos and Nkoranzas Indigenous populations. Nyakoma, on the other hand, is a small community, about 3 km from Kintampo, inhabited mostly by migrant farmers from Saboba, in the Northern Region of Ghana. Kintampo and surrounding environments have also become trial centres for agricultural modernisation technologies.

Although poverty is endemic across the communities (Cooke et al., 2016), Kintampo and Wenchi, as district capitals, are relatively well endowed with socio-economic services, and host several emerging commercial activities. In contrast, Nyakoma and Amponsahkrom are smaller communities, and are classified as amongst the poorest communities in the region, with most of their inhabitants comprising landless migrant farmers who frequently resort to borrowing, begging, labouring and engaging in low-paying menial jobs as coping strategies in response to poverty. The majority of farmers in these communities are also engaged in small-scale agriculture, with only a few engaged in large-scale farming. Food crops dominate agricultural production, although farmers in the communities are currently converting their lands into cashew nut production for export (Amanor, 2009; Boafo and Lyons, 2019; Evans et al., 2015).

Wenchi, Kintampo, Amponsahkrom and Nyakoma were selected for inclusion in this research based upon these diverse levels of development and economic opportunities. This provided a comparative dimension to understand the impacts of agricultural change and GR technologies, including exposing the stark contrast between the experiences of local elites with those of migrant and landless farmers.

Research methods

This research undertakes a qualitative case study comprising in-depth interviews, focus groups and farm-based observations with farmers, government officials and other local actors over six months, from June to November 2016, and across the four selected farming communities. A total of 39 farmers and 23 staff working in agricultural services were included. Nine farmers were recruited in Wenchi, 10 in Amponsahkrom, 12 in Kintampo and 8 in Nyakoma. A non-random sample of farmers was included to represent diverse levels of farming experience across a range of crops and cropping zones, as well as with diverse knowledge of, and experience with, GR interventions. The agricultural staff included agro-input dealers, agricultural extension officers, and government agricultural officers from the Municipal Assembly and MOFA, as well as staff from donor organisations.

Farmers included in this research also represented diverse ethnic groups, as well as diverse ages and gender. In Wenchi, participants were mostly Bonos (Indigenous/landowners), while in Amponsahkrom they were Dagaaba migrant/landless farmers. In Kintampo, participants consisted of Mos (Indigenous), and in Nyakoma they were Konkomba migrant farmers from the Northern Region of Ghana. Participants also held diverse landholdings, ranging from 1 to 320 acres, with the majority of smallholders having an average farm size of 3.5 acres. Migrant farmers tended to occupy smaller landholdings, and depended upon sharecropping or land rental arrangements to access farmland. While migrant farmers did not have long-term land tenure, the local (Indigenous) farmers had relatively better tenure security, including access to land via inheritance or customary tenure. Participants with smaller landholdings and insecure tenure, particularly migrant farmers, were mostly engaged in subsistence food crop cultivation (including maize, yam, cassava, beans, groundnuts and vegetables), and earned very low incomes from the farm.

In-depth interviews with farmers covered broad themes, including drivers for adoption of improved seed varieties, chemical fertilisers and agrochemicals, as well as some of the impacts associated with the uptake of inputs for both livelihoods and farming systems. In-depth interviews with local workers from the agricultural sector covered broad themes related to agricultural policies, improved seed varieties, agrochemicals and GR interventions.

In addition to in-depth interviews, focus groups were conducted to provide a platform for collective discussions and perspectives. Focus groups were conducted in Amponsahkrom and Nyakoma, with 10 and 9 participants respectively. The focus groups followed themes that emerged from in-depth interviews, including adoption of GR technologies such as ‘improved’ seed varieties, synthetic fertilisers and agrochemicals. All interviews and focus groups were conducted in Akan, the dominant language spoken in much of Brong Ahafo. ⁵

Farm-based observations were also conducted at five farms across all of the selected communities to understand farming activities in practice, as well as cultural practices and social relations. As part of the farm visits, farming practices, including land preparation methods, planting, weed control, chemical fertiliser use, harvesting and other practices, were observed.

Document analysis – including of agricultural development plans, policy briefs, institutional reports, policies documents, Acts and legislative framework documents, etc. – was also conducted. These documents were retrieved from national institutions and donor agencies, and covered topics related to seed, land, chemical fertiliser, plants, GR, smallholder farmers, commercial agriculture, aid and development.

The paper now turns to present our findings, starting with an analysis of actors championing the adoption of GR technologies.

Championing a GR

Farmers in the Brong Ahafo Region have been introduced to high-yielding seeds and other high-inputs via demonstration farms organised through donor-sponsored programmes, and often with the support of local agricultural extension officers. In Nyakoma, farmers were introduced to improved seeds and modern techniques of farming through a USAID-sponsored Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) programme. The aim of this programme, its proponents asserted, was to expose farmers to modern inputs that could enhance their competitiveness, and link them to input and output markets, the outcome of which might culminate in increased productivity, higher incomes for farmers and enhanced food security. During an interview with a representative from the Association of Church-based Development, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) that was implementing the ADVANCE programme in Kintampo, and nearby areas, he explained:

We have set-up demonstrations farms on Omankwa maize variety. We are masters of demonstration farms. Currently, we have about 13 demonstration farms, but we have had 21 of them before at Kintampo and its environs. So, we actually use demonstration farms to showcase modern farming technologies to farmers here.

Similarly, a farmer in Nyakoma explained: ‘The ADVANCE programme is teaching us modern methods of farming, including uptake of high-inputs such as high-yielding seeds and inorganic fertiliser. So, they set up a demonstration farm by the roadside to teach us.’

In a similar way, agribusinesses, such as Wienco Ghana, and foreign-based seed corporations such as Pannar, Pioneer and DuPont Seeds, have each engaged farmers by showcasing their products at demonstration farms. Seed corporations often establish their farms by the roadside, thereby providing highly visible demonstrations of yields for their hybrid and other improved seeds.

One farmer described their experience on one such demonstration farm: ‘I have personally travelled from here [Amponsahkrom] to Wenchi Agricultural Station to observe the demonstration of hybrid maize varieties such as Pan 53.’

Agricultural extension officers also play a key role in introducing farmers to GR technologies. Extension officers are public agricultural officers deployed within farming communities to provide technical advice to farmers. In order to reach a large number of farmers, extension officers often organise radio programmes to teach modern methods of farming, as one farmer in Wenchi explained:

There is a programme on radio every Saturday run by extension officers, which is aimed at educating farmers on farming seasons and where to procure improved seed varieties and other inputs for farming [. . .] After listening to them, we go to buy the seed and inputs to farm.

Although extension officers are public sector workers, in their role they act as advocates for the interests of private agribusiness dealers and development partners by receiving training from them. As evidence of this, many farmers in Nyakoma indicated that an agricultural extension officer introduced them to improved maize varieties. Similarly, one farmer in Amponsahkrom reiterated: ‘The agricultural extension officer here introduced me to the hybrid maize variety called Pan 53 from Pannar Seed Corporation.’

These results demonstrate that providers of modern inputs of production interact with farmers – and indeed rely upon – demonstration farms. These represent key sites for the dissemination of GR technologies, as well as communication that supports local uptake of the GR technologies. These understandings of GR that are communicated at the local level – including by local NGOs and extension officers – are also entangled with political, donor and business actors who operate at the international and national levels. We now turn to examine some of the factors shaping farmers’ decision-making related to the adoption of specific GR technologies, including hybrid seeds and agrochemicals.

Farmers’ adoption of GR technologies

Starting with seeds, farmers described hybrid maize varieties in general as unpopular, including on the basis that they are expensive, require heavy applications of chemical fertiliser and cannot be reused in subsequent farming seasons. For many farmers, these were disincentives for the adoption of hybrid maize varieties, particularly when there were alternatives available, such as Open Pollinated Varieties (OPVs). There are a number of OPVs of maize available on the market in Ghana that farmers prefer, including Obatanpa, Omankwa, Aburotia, Dobidi, Okomasa, Dodzi and Aburohemaa. In addition to these OPVs, farmers and commercial agro-inputs dealers also named a number of commercially available hybrid maize varieties they frequently planted, including Mamaba and Dadaba, as well as hybrid maize seeds from Pannar and Pioneer Seed Corporations. These OPVs and hybrid seeds have specific – and widely marketed – traits, including claims they are early-maturing, high protein and therefore good nutritional quality, as well as drought tolerant (DT). Omankwa, for example, is marketed as DT, Quality Protein Maize (QPM) that is able to mature in 90 days. Meanwhile, Obatanpa is marketed as QPM, tolerant to pests and diseases, and maturing in 105 days. Although OPVs are marketed on the basis of these various traits, farmers described adopting them due to their ability to mature earlier than local varieties. Farmers explained that due to rainfall seasons and patterns becoming shorter and more unpredictable, they were experimenting with early-maturing, or DT, maize varieties. As one farmer in Kintampo explained: ‘because the rains are uncertain these days, I decided to farm early-maturing maize varieties.’

Farmers’ decision to consider early-maturing varieties was also shaped by exchanges with extension officers and commercial agro-inputs dealers. Demonstrating this, one farmer in Wenchi explained: ‘Extension officers often say on radio that early-maturing maize varieties will help us adapt to the changing weather patterns.’

Although farmers generally described the OPVs as early-maturing, some insisted they were not actually high-yielding, particularly compared to local varieties. Farmers described one local variety, Appiah, as far more higher-yielding than most of the improved varieties on the market. Moreover, Appiah was recognised as having grains that could be stored for a long period, especially compared to the grains of ‘improved’ varieties. Demonstrating this, a farmer in Kintampo said: ‘I prefer Appiah to Obatanpa because it is high-yielding.’

While Appiah is high-yielding, it is late-maturing and relies upon a long period of rainfall. On this basis, farmers explained they were unable to plant Appiah during the short rainfall season. Instead, many farmers planted early-maturing varieties.

The adoption of improved maize varieties also has implications for farmers’ use of agrochemicals. For example, farmers indicated they increased their dosage of inorganic fertiliser when using improved maize varieties. One farmer in Kintampo, who compared local varieties with improved varieties, explained: ‘Appiah is high-yielding even without chemical fertiliser, but the improved varieties require fertiliser, without which, they will not yield.’ In addition, during a focus group in Nyakoma, farmers described being taught by extension officers to apply about 150 kg of chemical fertiliser per acre on their improved maize farms. Another farmer in Amponsahkrom explained that, according to extension officers, two bags (100 kg) of compound fertiliser (NPK) and one bag of ammonia fertiliser (50 kg) were required for a one-acre farm of improved maize varieties. One farmer in Nyakoma described details of knowledge communicated via demonstration farms: ‘We have been taught to apply NPK 20-10-10 in the first two weeks of planting our maize and NPK 20-15-15 in the first four weeks. We should then apply ammonia during cobbing (fruiting).’

Some farmers also described declining soil fertility as a challenge, with increasing chemical fertiliser applications as response. Farmers attributed the causes of nutrient depletion to a range of biophysical and human-induced factors, including the savannah nature of the Brong Ahafo Region, perennial bushfires, the use of herbicides, high rates of deforestation that expose soil to the sun, and high aridity, as well as repeated cultivation of the same land without fallow. Although a few farmers across the four research communities reported practising fallow to replenish soil fertility, they were also constrained by the diminishing area of farmland in their communities. As a result, they repeatedly cultivated their farmland, and relied upon the use of chemical fertiliser to do so, the outcome of which has driven increased chemical fertiliser use across all four research communities.

Demonstrating this, national statistics indicate that the import of solid fertiliser increased from 189,879 metric tonnes in 2006 to 669,951 metric tonnes in 2012, representing a tripling in chemical fertiliser use during this period in the country (MOFA, 2015). In addition, maize accounts for about 40% of chemical fertiliser use on food crops, suggesting the Brong Ahafo Region – the largest producer of maize in Ghana – has one of the highest rates of chemical fertiliser use in the country (Ragasa et al., 2013).

Findings presented in this section indicate that farmers are increasing their use of ‘improved’ seeds and other high-inputs. The adoption of these inputs has delivered significant socio-economic and ecological impacts at the local level.

Local level impacts of GR technologies

Farmers in the Brong Ahafo Region now largely rely upon external inputs for farming, with outcomes that have driven increased costs of production. Many poorer farmers described commercialisation of the entire production chain – from land preparation to crop harvesting – as disproportionately disadvantaging them. Meanwhile, in seeking to adapt to this new commercial environment, some farmers in the migrant communities of Amponsahkrom and Nyakoma described renting part of their land to migrant farmers so as to generate income to buy farm inputs. For instance, in Amponsahkrom, one landowner stated: ‘I rent out some of my farmland to migrant farmers for the two farming seasons to be able to get cash to purchase farm inputs.’

In contrast, migrant farmers did not have access to land from which they could extract rent, or use as collateral to access credit for inputs. Many migrant farmers described falling victim to such commercialisation. Demonstrating this, some migrant farmers described being required to rent farmlands that were once provided freely, or with a sharecropping arrangement whereby they would share farm produce with the landowners. In one interview, a migrant farmer in Amponsahkrom lamented:

Nowadays, I rent land from landowners to be able to farm. This year, I rented 2.5 acres for the two farming seasons. I paid Gh¢500 (US$100). I begged for reduction but the landowner refused, so I have to pay, because I needed land to farm.

Land rental arrangements have a long history in Ghana, dating back to the colonial period when commercialisation of agriculture drove land scarcity and new demands for land (see, for instance, Berry, 1993; Kasanga and Kotey, 2001). While rental arrangements have existed in the past, many migrant farmers explained that it was not a widespread practice. Yet it has now come to largely replace the in-kind, or non-commercial, land use arrangements, including freehold and gifts. For migrant farmers, renting farm land adds to the already high cost of production. As one farmer in Nyakoma explained: ‘previously, the cost of production was low [. . .], but since we began using modern inputs of production such as tractor, agrochemicals, chemical fertilisers, improved seeds, including renting land, the cost of production has increased.’

Although the cost of production has increased, there was no assured market to sell surplus produce. While Kintampo and Wenchi are major market centres for maize and other produce, there was no structured system to ensure farmers could generate income from the sale of their crops. Rather, farm produce prices were negotiated between farmers and buyers, and in most cases price negotiations favoured buyers, particularly during the major farming season when there was an abundance of farm produce available.

Despite the negative impacts of agricultural commercialisation for poor farmers, local elites ⁶ and commercial farmers benefit. Through the purchase of farming land from traditional leaders and family heads – representing custodians of customary land in the communities – they continue to drive agricultural commercialisation and land enclosure (see also Boafo and Lyons, 2019; Evans et al., 2015). Customary land is often held in trust by traditional rulers for the people, with each member of the community who pays allegiance to the traditional authority obtaining usufruct rights to customary land for farming. Local elites’ appropriation of customary land thereby denies community members as well as migrant farmers access to land for farming. The production of key export crops in the region – including cashew nut – has further exacerbated pressure from local elites to secure land, further displacing migrant and landless farmers. One farmer in Amponsahkrom described the ways poorer farmers were vulnerable to elite acquisition of land: ‘Currently, even if you own a piece of land here, and you are not careful, someone who has money would take over the land from you.’

Some local elites were able to accumulate over 300 acres of land, and frequently adopted hybrid seed varieties and high-inputs to produce agricultural crops that were destined for markets on this land. As an input dealer in Wenchi explained: ‘local elites are those that often buy hybrid maize varieties’. Because they produce in commercial quantities, local elites were also frequently linked to the market through contract buyers, who purchased direct from their farms. Meanwhile, many smallholder farmers sold their labour to commercial farmers; with some describing this as necessary to generate income required for the purchase of improved seeds and other farm inputs. While local elites’ ready access to capital enabled them to engage in commercial large-scale farming – thereby accruing any benefits that might arise from the uptake of GR interventions – existing social differentiation was reinforced, with the landless and migrant farmers further side-lined in market relations.

Farmers also described the uptake of GR technologies as displacing their traditional farming practices and local ecological knowledges. The adoption of GR technologies was also tied to changes in local ecologies, including the loss of indigenous plant materials. Demonstrating this, farmers’ adoption of improved maize varieties was described as driving the disappearance of local maize varieties. For example, while farmers were previously able to distinguish local maize varieties by their distinct characteristics (high-yielding, colour and lasting grains), the improved and local maize varieties were increasingly inter-mixed, making it difficult to differentiate between the two. As one farmer in a focus group recounted:

At first, we have a local variety called Para, it is high-yielding and has big grains, but since the improved maize varieties came here, we started losing the local variety. This is happening because of cross-pollination and fertilisation, which has caused a mixture of the local and improved maize varieties. This happens because our farms are very close to each other and different farmers plant different maize varieties, causing a complex mixture.

Farmers attributed the emergence of new varieties of maize to cross-pollination, between the different improved varieties, as well as between improved varieties and the local varieties. Farmers described cross-pollination as enabled via the communal nature of land use and farming, with several farmers owning and/or leasing farms very close to each other. A major problem associated with cross-pollination, as recounted by farmers, is that local varieties are being contaminated, with outcomes that are driving the extinction of these varieties. Demonstrating this, a farmer in Kintampo explained: ‘currently, the improved seed varieties are many, and so the local variety called Para that we used to plant has extinct.’ Similarly, another farmer in Amponsahkrom reiterated: ‘The local varieties look like the improved varieties but they are not improved varieties.’ Similar responses from farmers located across all four communities indicated that local maize varieties were being lost on a broad scale. In addition, many farmers also described fearing the loss of local varieties such Appiah, which is high-yielding, as well as having attractive and lasting grains. They feared that with time, Appiah, the most preferred and surviving local maize variety, may become extinct from their communities. The ability of farmers to identify these emerging trends and changing local varieties demonstrates they are not simply consumers of scientific knowledge and technological innovations; rather, they are bearers of local knowledge. Indeed, their in-depth knowledge has sustained local food systems for generations. Yet the current prescriptions of technical solutions for agricultural modernisation increasingly relegate farmers as consumers of scientific knowledge and technological innovations, rather than as sources of knowledge (Altieri, 1998; Desmarais, 2007).

Discussion: rhetoric versus reality of GR technologies

This paper has investigated some of the socio-economic and political forces driving the uptake of GR technologies in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. We have situated this agenda for agricultural transformation for Africa – culminating in a second-wave GR – in a colonial and neo-colonial context. In particular, we have traced how Africa’s second GR has been championed by an alliance of actors and initiatives, and brought to life through diverse claims that have shaped policies and public debates. The Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, AGRA, the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, USAID’s Feed the Future Programme, and the African Union’s CAADP – each with extensive ties to global agribusiness – are leading proponents of Africa’s GR. These international development actors subscribe to the long-held belief that agriculture in Africa will benefit from modernisation, with the uptake of high-inputs increasing productivity and thereby addressing the regional challenge of food insecurity (McKeon, 2014; Moseley, 2017; Moseley et al., 2015).

The strategy of the new GR – premised on the application of chemical fertilisers, agrochemicals and improved seed varieties to increase agricultural productivity – is arguably little different from previous GR attempts (Dethier and Effenberger, 2012; Djurfeldt et al., 2005; IFPRI, 2009; Moseley, 2017). However, the new GR relies upon market relations and private sector actors, such as commercial agro-input dealers, to disseminate high-input technologies. Their dissemination is also situated within a broader agenda for market liberalisation and modernisation that positions the private sector as the engine of growth, and as strategically placed to improve efficiency across the agricultural sector.

At the local level, findings from this research show that NGOs, agricultural officers and commercial agro-inputs dealers provide channels through which GR narratives and technologies are disseminated to farmers. These local actors are, in effect, advocates for these second-wave GR technologies, including via their delivery of training, extension advice and media reporting. Evidence from this research also demonstrates that the pressure to engage with GR technologies is exacerbated via the proliferation of commercial agro-inputs dealers as the providers of ‘improved’ seeds, chemical fertiliser and other agrochemicals. Similarly, in their research in the Northern and Upper West Regions of Ghana, Vercillo et al. (2020) and Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Bezner Kerr (2015) found that commercial agro-inputs dealers were key local actors through which GR technologies were disseminated to farmers. Through these commercial input networks, farmers become further integrated within markets, as part of the broader neoliberal reforms implemented in Africa during the 1980s (Moseley et al., 2015; Vercillo et al., 2020). This marks a distinction from the first GR, where farm inputs were largely available via the public domain, and freely exchanged among farmers. By contrast, the new – neoliberal – GR is centred upon commercial agro-input dealers and global agri-chemical manufacturers, with outcomes that serve to further integrate farmers within what are often precarious markets (Thompson, 2012).

Our research also demonstrates that it is with some reluctance that farmers in the Brong Ahafo Region are adopting GR technologies. This decision is navigated in the context of strong advocacy for a GR, including claims they will assist farmers to adapt to changing ecological conditions. Our findings suggest that variant ecological conditions and biophysical realities – including shortened rainfall periods and diminished soil fertility – provide an enabling environment for the uptake of these inputs. Similar to findings from Vercillo et al. (2020) – who reported that Northern Ghana smallholders reluctantly adopted GR technologies in response to a changing climate – our research found that erratic rainfall, shortened farming seasons and diminished soil fertility, and alongside constrained access to land, were factors driving the uptake of GR technologies. In so doing, we add to the emerging literature that demonstrates how changing ecological and physical conditions are shaping uptake of GR technologies.

Previous GRs have been strongly criticised for their local-level socio-economic impacts (Holt-Giménez, 2017; Kumar et al., 2015; Moseley, 2017; Pingali, 2012; Shiva, 1993). A key finding from our empirical evidence is that widespread uptake of GR technologies is tied to the commercialisation of agricultural production relations. Increasing costs of production, in particular, are driving marginalisation and dispossession of migrant farmers from the commercialisation process (Boafo and Lyons, 2019; Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Bezner Kerr, 2015; Vercillo and Hird-Younger, 2019). Systemic processes of accumulation and dispossession have been evident in past GR attempts (Holt-Giménez, 2017; Pingali, 2012; Shiva, 1993). Emerging studies (see, for instance, Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Bezner Kerr, 2015; Vercillo et al., 2020) have documented similar trends of elite accumulation, dispossession and gender exclusion associated with the new GR in Ghana. This study adds to these understandings by demonstrating that the uptake of GR technologies is tied to an increase in costs of production and indebtedness. Increasing debt is driving a worrying trend, with poor farmers exchanging casual labour for basic necessities, such as land or food, or to pay off debts (also see Amanor, 2013). The high cost of production is also driving farmers away from food crop production, with adverse consequences for local food provisioning and intergenerational land tenure relations. Meanwhile, local elites and commercial farmers are able to accrue the benefits of commercialisation, including via their acquisition of additional land, alongside their purchase of migrant and poor farmer labour. Migrant and landless farmers are increasingly vulnerable to elite capture as a result of ongoing agricultural commercialisation (see also Kansanga et al., 2019; Obeng-Odoom, 2016). Thus, the impact of GR is reinforcing social differentiation and class struggle in the case study communities (also see Moseley, 2017; Yaro et al., 2017; Wise, 2020).

Past GR attempts have also been criticised for their impacts on local ecologies, including erosion of Indigenous genetic resources (Holt-Giménez, 2017; Kumar et al., 2015; Moseley, 2017; Pingali, 2012; Shiva, 1993). In this research, evidence shows the disappearance of local maize varieties, including those varieties that have played a significant role in ensuring genetic diversity. Genetic diversity has sustained food production, and forms the foundation of local food production for generations. Local seeds and genetic resources not only sustain food production, they also embody centuries of indigenous knowledge, culture, tradition and biodiversity (see GRAIN, 2018). These knowledges, cultures and traditions have sustained communities and maintained the genetic resources necessary for farming and the continued survival of communities. However, modern views that consider farming a technical activity, knowledge of which is produced and disseminated through scientific and technological innovations, frequently disavow local and Indigenous knowledges (Beckie, 2000; Scrinis and Lyons, 2011). The widespread promotion of scientific and technological innovations – as reported in this paper – is tied to the disruption, and disappearance, of local maize varieties. The policy assumption – championed by diverse actors – that local seeds are inferior in achieving food security is hastening this process. Based on our findings, we argue there is a disconnect between the rhetoric of the GR, and realities on the ground.

Conclusions

This paper has presented evidence from a case study in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana, where the new GR has been deployed and promoted by a powerful tripartite alliance of actors, including donors, the state and corporate interests. While there has been considerable uptake of GR technologies by farmers in the region, the decision should be understood as primarily tied to farmers’ efforts to respond – and adapt – to significant changes in environmental conditions, including a shortening rainfall season, aridity and diminishing soil fertility. Yet the adoption of GR technologies is, at the same time, driving further commercialisation of agriculture, with outcomes that are unevenly experienced across diverse farming communities. Migrant and landless farmers in our four study sites were amongst the most vulnerable, who face increasing food insecurity, pressures for land access and other adverse social conditions. Additionally, the uptake of improved maize varieties is driving the loss of local maize varieties, including those that have sustained local food systems for generations.

The empirical findings presented in this paper contribute to critical political ecology scholarship in a number of ways. Firstly, we have demonstrated the links between agricultural policies – and the assemblage of actors shaping such policies – and the uptake of GR technologies in the Brong Ahafo Region. Quite simply, Ghana’s agriculture and trade policy context has provided advocacy for the expansion of a second GR. Secondly, we have demonstrated the disconnect between policy rhetoric related to the purported benefits of GR technologies and the lived realities for farming communities. Of greatest concern here is that while policies claim GR technologies will deliver poverty reduction, poorer farmers remain excluded from any such highly contested benefits on the basis that they are unable to afford such inputs. Based on the findings presented in this paper, we therefore conclude the second GR has failed to deliver on its promises related to increasing productivity, food security and incomes, or to support poverty reduction amongst smallholder farmers. Despite the rhetoric that a modernised agricultural food system might ensure food security and increased income, the reality on the ground tells a different story.

This paper also contributes to literature that demonstrates the urgent need to reimagine current dominant processes of agricultural transformation in the Brong Ahafo Region. While the adoption of market-based inputs and global market integration dominates policy approaches, local-level approaches that build sustainable farming systems – while at the same time taking into consideration the needs of the diverse material locations of farmers – can deliver food justice and ecological outcomes. Promotion of local-level – and non-commodified – approaches may also allow farmers to shape their own livelihoods, including by leaving room for local-level innovations in response to changing ecological conditions. Given the importance of the Brong Ahafo Region to Ghana’s national food system, such an approach will be vital to democratise agricultural development in the region.