The First World War and Cocoa Industry in Ghana: A Study of the Hazards of Economic Dependency

Olisa Godson Muojama

Authors

Olisa Godson Muojama

Keywords:

cocoa, colonial ghana, world war i, west africa, agriculture, gold coast, trade restrictions

Abstract

This paper is about the impact of World War I (1914-1918) on the cocoa industry in Ghana. Scholars have examined the impact of the Great War on African political and economic sectors, but have downplayed the War's impact on African economies, most especially cocoa industry in West Africa. I examine the effects of the war-time trade restrictions on cocoa industry in Ghana (which by then was the world's largest producer of cocoa) in order to show the impact of the international political economy on dependent economies as well as the consequences of economic dependence on external market. Although the quantity of cocoa exported from Ghana increased from 1915, there was no corresponding increase in value due to the restriction of trade and suspension of market as the logic of the economy. The result of this was the abandonment of cocoa farms and economic downturn of cocoa farmers.

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How to Cite

The First World War and Cocoa Industry in Ghana: A Study of the Hazards of Economic Dependency. (2016). Global Journal of Human-Social Science, 16(A6), 33-41. https://socialscienceresearch.org/index.php/GJHSS/article/view/1863

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