Colonial Famine Relief and Development Policies: Towards an Environmental History of Northern Ghana

Abstract

Since the 1980s, scientific experts have made a number of recommendations for averting food insecurity and famine in Northern Ghana and other dryland areas of West Africa. These studies are based on regional meteorological data, and their suggestions include early warning systems, smallholder agricultural development, and the depopulation of densely settled regions. Much of this literature posits two main hypotheses: that regional data can provide a reliable indicator of the potential for harvest failure, and that the recommended policy actions can work because they are new and innovative, without historical precedent. This article delves into the colonial past to challenge both of these hypotheses. Using Northern Ghana as a case study, we question the usefulness of regional data for understanding food insecurity, and we show that the supposedly novel ideas of the present in fact have a strong colonial lineage.

Land Access, Agricultural Land Use Changes and Narratives about Land Degradation in the Savannahs of Northeast Ghana during the Pre-Colonial and Colonial Periods

“…Not much attention was given to the effects of seasonal rainfall variations on food availability at certain critical times of year. The main rainy season from May to October was shorter than the long dry season which lasts from October to April, meaning that there were possible 'hunger season' periods towards the end of the long dry season when subsistent farming households consumed all the crops produced in the previous farming season [39]. The colonial government initially responded to this 'hunger season' situation by sending in famine relief items to the northeast of the Northern Territories.…”

“…The first as a means of exercising absolute political control in the process of state formation, and second as part of efforts to reserve forestry resources, improve agriculture and appropriate suitable land for production of fundamental agricultural products to support the northern economy. This latter concern stressed the need to limit the expansion of subsistence farming into what the colonial conservation officers called 'marginal or fragile' areas and the redistribution of population in these areas so that the local ecology's carrying capacity was not over-stretched [39,48]. It was propagated that a lean but efficient farming sector would boost agricultural productivity (and industrial development) while limiting the number of 'wasteful' shifting cultivation practicing peasants who rely on inefficient and unsustainable practices for mere subsistence.…”

“…But this move proved unsuccessful as the poorly developed transportation network in the northeast made it very difficult to transport food there [51]. More importantly was a survey to reassess the famine situation and the subsequent realisation that it was not as bad and acute as feared [39]. The government commissioned Charles Lynn in the 1930s, an agronomist who had been brought in from his previous station in northern Nigeria where he was in charge of implementing improved farming programmes.…”

“…The short-term plan included intensifying production through intensive application of manure derived from the increased range of livestock that farmers would be trained to rear [52]. The long-term strategies included increasing farm holdings from an average of 2-4 acres per farming household to about 8-12 The general perception of the British colonial administrators was that the traditional organisation of subsistence agricultural production was unsustainable and counter-productive, and was the primary cause of numerous cases of food shortages in the Northern territories and other parts of Ghana [39,50]. Not much attention was given to the effects of seasonal rainfall variations on food availability at certain critical times of year.…”

“…Surveys were conducted to study the resource endowments and potential of the region. The caravan trade in local goods between the societies in the West African interior and peoples of the Ashanti kingdom passed through these areas, and it provided the first option for revenue generation to the British through tax impositions [39]. Other avenues for revenue generation, such as cotton planting and cattle rearing, were encouraged [35].…”