Osamu Saito, Yaw Agyeman and Rodolfo Damlam conducted a preliminary field survey of Ghana’s cotton industry (16th November - 5th December 2015). During this visit they: (i) interviewed different stakeholders to capture their perceptions about the factors responsible for the decline of Ghana’s cotton industry, and the institutional/policy mechanisms and reforms needed to revitalize it (ii) undertook a small-scale survey in cotton growing communities of northern Ghana.
The first part of the visit involved interviews with national, regional and district-level institutions and stakeholders. The interviews started in Accra and took the study team to Tamale in Northern region and Wa, Gwollu and Tumu all in the Upper West region, where Ghana’s cotton production takes place. Specifically, interviewees came from:
(a) government institutions and agencies including the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ministry for Trade and Industry, Forestry Commission and District Chief Executives;
(b) research and international development agencies and NGOs such as Savanna Agriculture Research Institute, Germany International Development Agency (GIZ), and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA);
(c) cotton production and processing companies such as Wienco Cotton, Intercontinental Farms Ltd and Plantation Development Ltd.
Subsequently a household questionnaire was undertaken in two communities namely Bullu and Gwollu, both in the Sissala East District of the Upper West region. Both are well-known cotton out-grower communities for cotton processing companies for the past 40 years. Overall we conducted 40 household interviews, 20 to cotton producing households and 20 to non-cotton producers. This was supplemented with two focus group meetings, one with females and one with males in the two communities.
Harvesting cotton seed at Bullu village
(Sissala East District, Upper West region)
Meeting with local stakeholders at Gwollu village
(Sissala East District, Upper West region)
This preliminary study provided crucial information of the institutional structures, policy reforms and local stakeholder involvement in cotton production in Ghana. It also provides FICESSA with a body of knowledge on the local conditions of industrial crop development that will be useful for conducting successful qualitative and quantitative fieldwork in the future. This is crucial as FICESSA prepares to conduct its main field survey throughout 2016 across Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and scoping studies in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Guinea.
