THE POLITICS OF AGRICULTURAL POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES IN GHANA, 1982-2002

Abstract

This thesis focuses attention on the politics of agricultural policies and programmes at micro-level policy management in Ghana. Policy instruments used in the execution of the agricultural components of the structural adjustment programmes were the key variables considered in the analysis. The thesis argues that Ghana's agricultural policies and programmes have mainly been dominated by a calculus of divergent monopoly interests. It is these differing interests and their associated priorities that effectively determined the agricultural policy and strategy choices made. Policies put in place were resultantly ambiguous and did not meet sector-wide needs. Consequent upon that policy instruments were not only indecisive and inappropriate but also counterproductive given the differential policy outcomes in export and subsistence food production sub-sectors. Our findings specify that agricultural policy inappropriateness and ineffectiveness derived mainly from the top-down approach to the policy formulation process. Our analysis further indicates the existence of an incomplete marketing system in the rural economies of the Hohoe District. Thus, the liberalisation of trade within incomplete marketing system contributed to the inappropriateness of agricultural policies at the grassroots. Defining sector-wide needs in terms of sub-sector priorities also engendered inter-bureaucratic resource reallocation and misallocation within the agricultural sector. Taken together, these factors rendered agricultural policies and programmes ineffective, impotent and incapable of achieving sector-wide policy objectives. Policy goals and objectives need be clearer to ensure appropriate policy choice to guarantee policy success. Central to the agricultural policy needs is resource allocation and use. Analysis shows that agricultural policies were mainly derived from macro needs. Resource allocation and use accordingly tended to meet more of macro objectives than agricultural sector-wide imperatives. Thus, resources were often concentrated on the attainment of macro policy objectives to the detriment of micro level requirements. The analysis further reveals that the macro-policy had never been wholly home-grown. It was either the emulation of the existing ones in the developed world or borrowed hook, sink and line with little or no adaptation. Besides, given the conditions of loan repayment and debt servicing, the policy reforms strategy answered more the economic self-interests of the external policy sponsors than internal policy essentials. Underscoring this colonial objective was the over-emphasis on expanding agricultural exports alongside currency devaluation to make the local exports, mainly agricultural commodities, cheaper. Concerning the theoretical perspectives, this study extends the public choice literature by demonstrating that organised interest-groups hardly influenced agricultural policy in Ghana. This is largely because Ghana's agricultural policy process was top-down. Other than the reactive, ad hoc and quick-fix approaches to the policy process, Ghana had never had any fully developed definite agricultural policy. One other explanation is that Ghana's agricultural policies simply derived their existence from the existing macroeconomic objectives and consequently shortened the agricultural policy cycle. Neither were the policies a by-product of capture by interest groups nor the results of legislators following incentives created by institutions. Also noted was that the policy implementation process was rather long and involved more people in the execution than in the formulation. These findings are a departure from earlier viewpoints that agricultural policies were formulated to serve political interests of politicians. Policy inappropriateness, in this context, did not originate in political expediency other than in the foreign provenance of the policies and the associated economic self-interests.