Urbanization and its Impact on Ghana’s Rural Transformation

Urbanization without industrialization is a major feature in Ghana, as elsewhere in much of Africa. This chapter explores how urbanization in Ghana has affected agricultural development in terms of rural employment, the farm size distribution, and use of modern inputs. In examining these relationships, the authors recognize that there have been distinct spatial patterns of urbanization in Ghana, and urbanization has not affected agriculture equally throughout the country. Therefore, the chapter develops a spatial typology of seven types of districts based on their city population size and location in the north or south of the country and examines the share of households employed in agriculture, nonagriculture, or both across these different district types. The findings illustrate that urbanization is increasing the share of rural households in the nonfarm economy, and contributed to a shift towards more medium-sized farms in the agriculturally important areas of the north. The chapter further tests the induced innovation hypothesis, which predicts that urbanization and associated increases in population density and market access should lead to more intensive farming practices. The findings show though that while there has been substantial uptake of fertilizers, herbicides, and mechanization in recent years, there is only limited support that this has been driven by urbanization.