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The economic and social organisation of Ghanaian cocoa-farming is very complex, reflecting differences in population density, land tenure, accessibility, soil fertility and other factors. The 'small peasant', with his two or three acre farms, is one type of farmer, and it has always been supposed that it was he who created the world's largest cocoa-growing industry. The migration of southern Ghanaian cocoa-farmers, which has been proceeding since the 1890s, was not known to have occurred; and this study shows that it was the migrant, not the 'peasant', who was the real innovator. This migrant has scarcely been mentioned in the literature. Author Polly Hill now gives a full account of his migration, 'one of the great events in the recent economic history of Africa south of the Sahara'. The migrant farmer, who rather resembles a 'capitalist' than a 'peasant', buys land (or inherits it from those who bought before him) and conventionally uses the proceeds from one cocoa land to purchase others. It is now possible with the aid of farm-maps to study the whole migratory process, with its changing pattern of land ownership, over more than half a century. The results are revealing. The conventional notion that it was only recently that West Africans began to engage in large-scale economic enterprises is shown to be false. One of the main contentions of this book is that the migrant farmer has been remarkably responsive to economic ends. It is further shown that there is no incompatibility between this kind of enterprise and the continuance of traditional forms of social organisation: nor is there evidence that the enterprising individual found himself hampered by the demands made on him by members of his lineage. In analysing and recording the details of the migratory process, Dr. Hill has made an important contribution to the economic history of West Africa. Besides the economists and economic historians for whom the book is primarily intended, it should be studied by lawyers, geographers, social anthropologists, and all concerned with problems of underdevelopment.
The livelihood of Third World farmers conflicts with saving the remaining tropical forests. The advantages of growing cocoa in cleared primary forest drive from the fertility of virgin soils and low concentrations of weeds, pests and diseases. The consequent emergence of new 'pioneer fronts' has also been affected by cheap labour, relative commodity prices, pests and diseases, credit resources, entrepreneurship, information, physical infrastructures, and government policies. The dynamism of smallholdings and competitive private marketing over estates and marketing boards is demonstrated.
Periodic cycles and waves are characteristics of global capitalism. The contraction in world trade during the Great Depression of the 1930s stands out as the strongest adverse shock to international trade in modern history. This book uses the Nigerian cocoa industry’s encounter with the world economy of the 1930s to knit together a gamut of themes ranging from the social formations of production to the forces of demand and supply, and price fluctuations and stabilization, as well as the protest movements against monopoly capitalism. It examines the Nigerian cocoa industry within the international economy of the inter-war years, in order to demonstrate how the dynamics of the international capitalism of the 1930s such as the Great Depression and the fluctuations in commodity prices affected the cocoa industry and the peasant cocoa producers in colonial Nigeria. It provides an interesting case study of the impact of international capitalism on the periphery economy, as well as the consequences of economic dependence on the external market. This book will be an indispensable resource for historians, economists, anthropologists and the general reader with an interest in the areas of international political economy, depression economics, world commodity trade, and agriculture and its related industries.
First published in 1986, this work challenges underdevelopment analyses of Africa’s past experiences and future prospects, and builds upon a very wide range of recent historical research to argue that the impact of Capitalism has resulted in economic progress and significant improvements in living standards. In marked contrast to the dependency approach, they propose that the important political and economic differences between the experiences of developing countries should be stressed and analysed. The argument is supported by a detailed look at the emergence since 1900 of capitalist social relations of production in nine different countries.
This edited collection, written by eleven leading specialists, examines the nineteenth-century commercial transition in West Africa: the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and the development of alternative forms of 'legitimate' trade, mainly in vegetable products. Approaching the subject from an African, rather than a European or American, perspective, the case studies consider the effects of transition on the African societies involved. They offer significant insights into the history of pre-colonial Africa and the slave trade, the origins of European imperialism, and longer-term issues of economic development in Africa.
A detailed and richly nuanced historical portrait of pre-colonial Asante.
An examination of the varied ways, outside and inside markets, in which Asante producers obtained labor, land and capital during the transformative era. This is a study of the changing rules and relationships within which natural, human and man-made resources were mobilized for production during the development of an agricultural export economy in Asante, a major West African kingdom which became, by 1945, the biggest regional contributor to Ghana's status as the world's largest cocoa producer. The period 1807-1956 as a whole was distinguished in Asante history by relatively favorable political conditions for indigenous as well as (during colonial rule) for foreign private enterprise. It saw generally increasing external demands for products that could be produced on Asante land. This book, which fills a major gap in Asante economic history, transcends the traditional divide between studies of precolonial and of twentieth-century African history. It analyses the interaction of coercion and the market in the context of a rich but fragile natural environment, the central process being a transition from slavery and debt-bondage to hired labor and agricultural indebtedness. It contributes to the broad debate about Africa's historic combination of emerging 'capitalist' institutions and persistent 'precapitalist' ones, and tests the major theories of the political economy of institutional change. It is written accessibly for an interdisciplinary readership. Gareth Austin is a lecturer in Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Joint Editor of the 'Journal of African History'.
First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
A major contribution to an area of debate still in its formative phase. It offers new perspectives on both the micro-foundations of economics and the long run dynamics of economic development.