Changing Labour Relations in Commercial Agrarian Landscapes in Ghana

Abstract

Labour relations have shaped agricultural production in Ghana’s peasant economy. In the current neoliberal development era, where land is under siege, the labour question has become even more important in the evolution of labour regimes in agrarian areas. This chapter used qualitative and quantitative data from a three year agricultural research project to discuss the changing labour relations in the current conjuncture, and also to explain in what ways some older labour practices are changing and new ones emerging. We found that while poorer farmers still depend on family labour, the involvement of wives and children have different connotations. Wives’ work on farms remained unpaid and deemed part of their conjugal duties, while work of children is paid and regarded as intergenerational transfer of knowledge. Similarly, while wealthy farmers welcome their educated sons on farms, wives are pushed out so that the man could consolidate his hold on resources from the successful farming enterprise. The constellations in the family labour practices also have important implications for hired labour practices which continued to be centred on sexual division of labour which perpetuates the exploitation of female labour both in the household and on large farms. Additionally, increased wealth of an agricultural household deepens sexual division of labour in the household and pushes women further into reproductive roles. This chapter argues that commercial farming is inducing changes in labour relations, especially unfavourable gender and intergenerational transformations.