Structural adjustment and economic efficiency of rice farmers in northern Ghana

Increasing agricultural productivity and employment in sub-Saharan African countries has received widespread attention in the literature on economic development and poverty alleviation. Agricultural growth, however, is linked to farm profits. Over the past few years, considerable research has examined agricultural efficiency in the region. This issue has gained attention in the light of structural adjustment programs-involving market liberalization, fiscal austerity, and currency devaluation-that are currently being implemented in many sub-Saharan African countries and global trade liberalization being pursued under the World Trade Organization. The experience of structural adjustment programs since the beginning of the 1980s shows how particularly important farm household efficiency is to the African rural economy. The fundamental role of structural adjustments was to enable private markets to perform better by eliminating the dominant public sector, encouraging the development of the private sector, and letting prices perform their signaling role for the allocation of factors of production, goods, and services. One of the main explanations for previous failures to intensify food crop production in the region has been poor public policies, including subsidizing cereal imports, which penalized domestic cereal production.