Evaluation of traditional rulers as a policy instrument for managing the food crisis: the case of northern Ghana

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Periodical article

Title:	Evaluation of traditional rulers as a policy instrument for managing the food crisis: the case of northern Ghana
Author:	Ray, D.I.
Year:	1987
Periodical:	Genève-Afrique: acta africana
Volume:	25
Issue:	1
Pages:	7-24
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ghana
Subjects:	traditional rulers food shortage
Abstract:	The potential for using traditional rulers as a policy instrument of the postcolonial state for dealing with agricultural crises, specifically food shortages, is examined. An analysis of the nature of the food crisis in northern Ghana (in the Gonja and Dagomba areas) demonstrates that it is precisely those who are most vulnerable to food shortfalls who also provide food and labour for the traditional rulers. Past initiatives of the colonial and postcolonial governments to harness the still considerable legitimacy of the Gonja traditional rulers in promoting agricultural production have met with little success. The major reason for this failure would seem to be that traditional rulers and the postcolonial state are rooted in different economic interests and authority. To solve the food crisis would involve, amongst other measures, increasing the production of small-scale peasants and redirecting the part of their production that presently goes as tribute to feed the chiefs, and instead use it to improve the nutrition of the producers. Notes, ref., sum. also in French and German.