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Farmer resistance to agriculture commercialisation in northern Ghana

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  • Siera Vercillo
  • Miriam Hird-Younger

Abstract

Drawing on postcolonial literature and theories of farmer resistance, this article provides an empirically based alternative explanation of African farmer behaviours to narratives that blame them for their lack of technology adoption. Based on six months of ethnographic immersion in one district in the Northern Region of Ghanaa, we identify the ways that farmers defy commercial agriculture investment, government services and non-governmental organisation (NGO) project interventions aimed at intensification, and describe their reasons for doing so. This study interprets farmers’ acts of defiance, such as side-selling or falsely weighting their products, as insights into everyday acts of resistance. We find that throughout Ghana’s postcolonial period, agriculture intensification policy and practice have produced an environment where various development actors and farmers have both a sense of entitlement and mistrust of each other. Farmers’ acts of sabotage may be spaces where they make rational choices based on experiences of historical antecedence, including decades of failed development projects, elite corruption and mismanagement, degrading ecologies and donor hegemony.

Suggested Citation

  • Siera Vercillo & Miriam Hird-Younger, 2019. "Farmer resistance to agriculture commercialisation in northern Ghana," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 763-779, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:40:y:2019:i:4:p:763-779
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2018.1552076
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    Cited by:

    1. Bélair, Joanny, 2021. "Farmland investments in Tanzania: The impact of protected domestic markets and patronage relations," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Phiri, Isaac, 2020. "The effect of access to finance on commercialisation of smallholder maize farmers in Eswatini," Research Theses 334755, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    3. Joeva Sean Rock, 2023. "“No one is talking about food”: making agriculture a “business” in Ghana," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(3), pages 1259-1272, September.

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