Contesting the State in Ghana's Cocoa Trade: The Case of the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers' Union, 1957-2004

TL;DRAbstract

In the twenty-first century, African farmers are still in the grips of economic stagnation and are being subjected to neo-liberal developmental policies such as structural adjustment and trade liberalization. However, small-scale producers have not disengaged from the state as some scholars assert like Goran Hyden. In Ghana, producers came together in the form of a farmers' union to address their economic needs not through the "economy of affection" where they relied on kinship and other forms of familial alliances but rather through networks of market-oriented economic association. One such association for agriculture producers was the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers' Union, a cocoa farmers' association. The formation of the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers' Union created a complex interaction between the state and agricultural producers. Smallholder cocoa producers, through such organizations, laid claim as actors in economic development. The state, through its historic role as financier of agricultural prod

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