Paper short abstract:

This paper will scrutinise the development of state farms in Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah’s state capitalism. Central aims of state farms were to promote modern agricultural production and create waged labour employment in rural areas.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will focus on an important yet neglected chapter of Ghana's history of independence: the development of state farms under Kwame Nkrumah. State farms were designed to decrease agricultural imports, increase agricultural exports besides cocoa, and demonstrate the superiority of modern and technological agriculture. Besides those agronomic and political goals, state farms were also designed to prevent rural to urban migration, seen as a central cause of the unemployment problem of the new nation.

State farms commenced their work in 1962. Two years later there were already 112 farms in Ghana, each of which employed between 100 and 500 workers. The farms were progressive in introducing formalised waged labour into agriculture, and by 1965 the total number of state farm employees reached 18.000. Yet, the ambitious project was short lived and ceased with Nkrumah's fall. Explanations for the failure remain vague, due to the lack of systematic analysis.

The development of state farms has been largely ignored in historiography. Agronomic studies of the 60s and 70s have focused on state farms, but seldom analysed political aspects of it.

This paper will analyse the position of state farms within the political and economic history in the 1960s and within Nkrumah's socialism. Central topics are the organisation of state farms and their agricultural production. With respect to the goal of preventing rural flight, the paper will have a special focus on labour employment at the farms.