Fog of Field Work

Tamale has very wide streets. So wide I imagine that if I do melt under this sun – which is seeming increasingly likely – the puddle of me will roll out and out until one of the Chinese made motorcycles with the Japanese sounding names zips across me and tracks me back towards the city center.

I was trekking up the Bolga Road towards the Northern Region’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture offices. This was my first attempt at field work, a somewhat flattering title for the jumble of interviews cobbled together over two weeks in Tamale, Nyankpala, and Zebilla in Northern Ghana. After repeating my topic (perceptions of food insecurity) and my questions (Is there a food crisis here?) to several different interviewees, I actually began to convince myself that I was not just pretending to be a researcher. I don’t know that I convinced anyone else, but still farmers merchants, development workers, and government officials were extremely generous with their time and candor. Because of that, I have started to see something of the lean season.

Small farmers, the majority of which are women, grow about 70% of food crops in Ghana and a similar proportion in most of the nations of Sub Saharan Africa. Small farmer is not synonymous with subsistence farmer. A small farmer may grow only cash crops. Most of Ghana’s cocoa is grown by farmers with only a few acres. The fully self-sufficient farmer, growing what he eats and eating what he grows is also the stuff of myth. Food crop farmers may derive a sizable portion of their calories from their own fields, but the economy is too monetized for them not to enter the market by selling their surplus crops or labor. Inadequate storage facilities and the need for immediate cash (credit is too scarce and expensive to be accessible to most) force small farmers to sell their produce right after harvest. The glut on the market means they take a low price, knowing that a few months later they will buy food for their families and seeds for their farmers at prices inflated by shortage and demand. Profits go to those traders who have the capital to store food. They buy low and sell high and move the food to markets with the most attractive prices.

Yields here are already comparatively low. The savanna of Northern Ghana sees only one rainy season each year. The South has two. Moreover, food crops, especially roots and tubers, have been “orphaned” receiving little of the research and extension lavished upon export crops like cocoa. The part I need to conduct more research on is the role played by the political and economic marginalization of the North. By blocking freehold tenure and investment, the colonial government kept the North as a labor reserve for Southern industry. Attempts in the 1970s to commercialize agriculture in the region were aimed more at enriching a well-connected elite and providing cheap food for the South than at improving livelihoods in the North. Over the past two decades, national poverty rates have dropped, as they increase in the three northern regions.

One consequence of these interlocking factors – environmental, technical, political – is a perennial lean season. In May, June, and July, many of the families which were eating three meals a day cut back to two. Vulnerability expands and deepens. A flood or a drought, illness or loss of income – under these circumstances, a hardship can become a disaster.

The plight of Ghanaians living in the North hasn’t gone unnoticed – though I think you could argue that the same can’t be said for the structural aspects undergirding the plight of the North as a whole. A host of government interventions has attempted to boost production and reduce poverty. Most recently, small dams, fertilizer subsidies, and a school feeding program aimed simultaneous at encouraging school attendance and supporting local farmers have met with varying degrees of success. A new government initiative funded by IFAD and ADB, the Northern Regional Growth Program, promises a new tack. It eschews the narrow focus on production, assesses the entire value chain, and assists farmers in meeting the demands of national and international markets. In addition to government efforts, an army of NGOs has fanned out across the three northern regions. World Food Program, World Health Organization, CARE, and World Vision all have outposts in Tamale. There must be as many pick ups and SUVs plying the roads of Northern Ghana in the service of “development” as there are for private purposes.

I’ve been asked several times how I see the North. There’s no good way to answer a question like that. I usually say, “It’s nice,” and go on to speak favorably of the absence of Accra-style traffic. One of my friends in Tamale took issue with my response. It’s not nice. It’s not nice that so many people here don’t have access to clean water or adequate medical care or a decent way to make a living.

So if you ask me how I see Northern Ghana now, I’ll tell you that I see it as a violent place. Not because there are chieftancy and land disputes in Yendi and Bawku. Not because armed robbery is prevalent. I bet it’s more common in Accra. I say it’s a violent place because violence is an exercise of force, an act of power. It is also an exploitation of vulnerability. Violence requires, thrives on vulnerability. Northern Ghana, like any place where poverty is deeply inscribed, is a place where people are vulnerable and so subject to a high level of violence. When the White Volta breaks its banks. When another child dies of malaria. When work goes forward on an empty stomach. When a farmer sells his sweat and blood and calluses at a pittance. When extension agents siphon fertilizer coupons to the highest bidders. When government knocks down trade barriers so subsidized American rice can flood out the local crop. This is violence. It is the hand of the stronger raised against the weaker. We may not like to see it that way because it says something about us.

The Ghanaians who struggle daily are not victims. They are survivors. First and foremost, they deserve respect. They deserve a level playing field.