URBANIZATION AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE COCOA ECONOMY IN GHANA

The dissertation has sought to characterize the nature of the cocoa industry in Ghana and isolate factors which have culminated in the mass exodus of the youth from the cocoa farms to the city and thus initiating steady but sure decline of the industry.;The organization of production on the farms scares off potential farmers and farm workers. Their monetary income is generally so deplorable that the youth regard cocoa farm work as slavery. The principal cause for the precarious economic situation of the farmers and farm workers has been the continual and increasing appropriation of cocoa farmers' income by the state. The State Cocoa Marketing Board has been the principal vehicle of appropriation of farmers' income. The Board since the colonial era has interceded between the world market price and price paid to the farmers. After meeting its operational expenses, the Board kept the difference as a stabilizing fund. This has been intensified and expanded by the post colonial state. Buying agents of the Cocoa Marketing Board play no small role in appropriation of the farmers' income as they divert money into private concerns including donations to political parties in power.;These are the forces acting on the city growth from the cocoa growing areas, forces which make cocoa farming less attractive to the youth who are more "westernized" as opposed to traditional rural lifestyles associated with the older generation and therefore cannot abide by a system that reduces them to slaves of the urban sector. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.);Basically, the cocoa economy in Ghana is indigenously owned. It may be described as peasant farming in the sense that close to 25% of the holdings are less than four acres in size. However, the economy is dominated by 4% of the farmers who control the total farm size and output of the industry. This situation is due to the nature of the land tenure system and the opportunities it denies large sections of the farming population. The problems associated with the land tenure include insecurity of holdings, and in some parts of the western region of Ghana, migrant farmers are unable to bequeathe their farms to their descendants after death.