Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

Publication Title

Global Public Policy and Governance

Keywords

agrarian change, new green revolution, food security, smallholder agriculture, Ghana

Abstract

This paper reflects on Africa's new green revolution (NGR) movement by drawing data from Ghana as an illustrative case to assess the benefits and challenges of NGR and discuss the long-term environmental implications of NGR interventions. We draw insights from agrarian change theory to understand the complexity of local, national, and international factors that interact to produce changes in agricultural systems that affect smallholder farmers in poor settings. Data were collected using qualitative methods based on the lived experiences of farmers and analyzed to understand farmers’ perspectives. We identified increased yield and income levels as crucial benefits of the NGR. Politicization and excessive bureaucracy resulting in perennial delays in the delivery of inputs emerged as critical challenges to the NGR. These findings have implications for the social environment (including the transformation of traditional gender roles and the erosion of traditional knowledge systems) and the physical environment (including forest degradation and the depletion of beneficial soil microbial organisms), which may erode short-term gains of the NGR and compromise broader scale environmental sustainability goals. Critical steps are needed toward consolidating actors and innovations for sustainable agriculture in Africa if global ecological management and poverty reduction objectives are to be achieved consistently with the principles of environmental sustainability.

DOI

10.1007/s43508-023-00070-5

Comments

This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43508-023-00070-5

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