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Origins of the Gold Coast Cocoa Industry: Example of a Vent-for-Surplus?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

J.S. Hogendorn  and
M. Goldberg
J.S. Hogendorn
Affiliation:
Colby College, Waterville, Maine, U.S.A.
M. Goldberg
Affiliation:
Colby College, Waterville, Maine, U.S.A.
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Extract

There is an interesting and long-standing controversy over the applicability of the vent-for-surplus model to the growth of the Gold Coast cocoa industry around the turn of the century. This debate has important implications both for African economic history and for current issues of resource allocation in developing countries. Our paper attempts to clarify the elements of the debate by applying to each ele-ment a production-possibilities model, using historical evidence to verify where possible the validity of the analysis.

Type
The Great Debate: History and Underdevolopment
Information
Itinerario , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , July 1982 , pp. 46 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1982

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References

Notes

1. Unfortunately, the authors were unable to revise the article to include the interesting analysis of the ventfor-surplus model by Ingham, Barbara. Tropical Exports and Economic Development. London: MacMillan, 1981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Szereszewski, R., Structural Changes in the Economy of Ghana, 1891–1911, London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1965.Google Scholar

3. Hill, P., The Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963Google Scholar.

4. Although to our knowledge a full-scale article or monograph stating this position explicitly for the Gold Coast does not exist.

5. Findlay, R., Trade and Specialization, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1970, pp. 70–73Google Scholar.

6. See the discussion in Ingha, B., “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered with Ghanian Evidence,” The Journal of Development Studies Vol. 15, no. 3, 1979, pp. 19–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. The diagram is adapted from Findlay, Trade and Specialization. Findlay1's book was published after Szereszews-ki's, but the work is clearly applicable to the latter's analysis.

8. Smith, S., “An Extension of the Vent for Surplus Model in Relation to Long-Run Structural Change in Nigeria”, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 28, no. 3, 1976, pp. 433–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Szereszewski, Structural Changes, pp. 77-85, 110-11.

9. See the description of the model in Hogendorn, J. S. “Economic Initiative and African Cash Farming: Pre-Colonial Origins and Early Colonial Developments” in Duignan, P. and Gann, L. H., eds, The Economics of Colonialism, Vol. IV of Colonialism in Africa: 1870–1960, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975, pp. 288–306Google Scholar.

10. We have made the attempt to fit the positions of Hill, Ingham, and Smith into a simplified production possibility setting that we believe is in accordance with their views.

11. Hill, P., “Review of R. Szereszewski, Structural Changes in The Economy of Ghana 1891–1911”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 16, no. 1, 1976, pp. 132, 133. Ingham, “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, p. 21.Google ScholarSmith, S., “Colonialism in Economic Theory: the Experience of Nigeria” Journal of Development Studies Vol; 15, no. 3, 1979, pp. 54, 55. Szereszewski,. Structural Changes, pp. 129, 130, 139, 140CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. de Gregori, T.R., Technology and the Economic Development of the Tropical African Frontier, Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1969, p. 29.Google Scholar“Cocoa”, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968 ed., Vol. 6.Google ScholarHogendorn, , “Economic Initiative and African Cash Farming” p. 293Google Scholar.

13. A controversial question discussed in Hogendorn, “Economic Initiative and African Cash Farming”, pp. 320–321, and Hill, Migrant Cocoa Farmers, Appendix VI.1

14. Gregori, De, Technology and Economic Development, p. 392.Google Scholar

15. The decline of rubber trade is discussed in Dumett, R., “The Rubber Trade of the Gold Coast and Asante in the Twentieth Century: African Innovation and Market Responsiveness” Journal of African History Vol. 12, 1971, pp. 79–101. For another view seeCrossRefGoogle ScholarSzereszewski, , Structural Changes, pp. 75, 82–3. Also see Szereszewski, pp. 29, 47, 67Google Scholar.

16. Ingham, , “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, pp. 22–25.Google Scholar

17. Hill, , Migrant Cocoa Farmers, pp. 90, 165–168, and Appendix VII.2Google Scholar

18. Ibid., pp. 169, 170, and Chapter V, especially pp. 139, 140, 145, 146. Hill also mentions the willingness of land sellers to take payment in installments, pp. 82–3.

19. Ibid., pp. 168, 221, 227.

20. Ibid., p. 164,

21. Ibid., p. 168, and Ingham, “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, p. 28.

22. Ingham, “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, p. 25. Smith, “An Extension”, p; 435. Szereszewski, Structural Chang-es, p. 11.

23. Hill, Migrant Cocoa Farmers, p. 181. Ingham, “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, pp. 27, 28.

24. Hill, Migrant Cocoa Farmers, p. 181.

25. Ibid., pp. 17, 18, 180, 190.

26. Ibid., pp. 16, 180, 181.

27. Ibid., pp. 16, 183–5. See Chapter IV for specifics on inheritance.

28. Hogendorn, J.S., “The Vent for Surplus Model and African Cash Agriculture to 1914, Savanna, Vol. 5, no. 1, 1976, p. 26.Google Scholar

29. Hill, “Review”, p. 132.

30. Ingham, “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, p. 30.

31. This is unlike Nigerian groundnuts or Ugandan cotton, for example, where it is difficult to imagine their export without the railways in each country.

32. Ingham, “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, pp. 28, 29.

33. chapter II and Appendix VII.2

34. See Ibid., Chapter II, Appendix VII.2, VII.3, and VIII. 1.

35. Ibid., pp. 164, 166, 167, 168, and Appendix VII.3. Ing-ham, “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, p. 23.

36. Hill, Migrant Cocoa Farmers, pp. 190, 226.

37. Ibid., p. 226.

38. Ibid., pp. 190, 226.

39. Some of these points are dealt with in Ingham, “Vent for Surplus Reconsidered”, p. 26.