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Joshua Belton and Agata Surma (Geography Majors)
“Development, Livestock, and Society: Cultural Practices and Agricultural Intervention in Upper East Ghana”
Sponsor: Professor Nathan Sayre, Geography
Project Description
Agata and Josh will be studying the ways two major agricultural interventions--colonial development and the Tono Irrigation Project--have changed livestock’s role in several communities in Upper East Ghana. They will first visit the British National Archives in London to research the pre-colonial conditions in the area and assess how colonial development unfolded there. They will then fly to Accra, Ghana, where they will interview experts to learn about the area's past and present. Afterwards, they will travel to Upper East Ghana to observe the area and conduct interviews, which will help them determine the present role of livestock in communities there. They will then compare how that role has changed with the various projects, and what the consequences of these changes have been.
Scholar's Photo
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Agata in the field while the cows come home.
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Josh at the National Archives in London.
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Scholar's Journal
Josh Belton / Agata Surma; Haas Journal
We’ve been here in Ghana for a few weeks now; it’s been a month since we left Berkeley. Prior to touching down in Ghana, we spent a week in London combing over British colonial documents pertaining to the Upper East region of Ghana. The British National Archives is an absolutely amazing place. It is remarkable how meticulously the British documented, well, everything. Much of our first week was spent reading telegrams between colonial officers about their work in the region we’re now studying. In addition, we visited the British Library (the British version of the United States’ Library of Congress), which also holds a rich collection of materials relevant to our research topic. Although we did not find exactly what we were hoping for in London, in such places it is hard not to find relevant information on a topic like ours, and we are looking forward to sorting through all of these copies of books, correspondences, and reports.
We arrived in Accra in mid June. It was around 90 degrees at 85% humidity. We’ve never sweated so much. During the day, the city vibrated with the sounds of cars, the bright colors of women’s dresses, and the boom of peoples’ voices. At night, the air was filled with music and the commingling smells of fish, roast maize, and fried yams. We had our first Ghanaian meal: fish and okra stew with banku (corn and cassava mash). We paid a visit to the University of Ghana at Legon, which was meant to be more sight-seeing than anything, and ended up spending the better part of a week wading through the shelves of books on Ghanaian history, agriculture, and development.
Leaving Accra, we headed north by bus and have settled here in Navrongo. The town is roughly 4 miles from the border with Burkina Faso and 5 miles from Tono Lake, the Tono Irrigation Project’s reservoir. If you have a map handy, look for Bolgatanga, the nearest city to Navrongo. Right away, we met up with a Ghanaian NGO manager who has helped orient us and determine which communities we should visit. We have been able to conduct interviews and observation in several villages, and have met plenty of wonderful, helpful, interesting people.
For a variety of reasons, there has been a tremendous drop in the number of animals that farmers here own. There are in fact so many apparent causes that are related in so many ways that our research thus far has raised as many questions at it has answered. To confuse matters further, there has been a decline in irrigated and unirrigated areas, but for some seemingly different reasons. We suppose this will make for a more interesting thesis-writing year, as instead of simply writing up results we’re going to have to do some critical thinking. In the meantime, we’re going to try to gather as much information as we can while we refine our skills as interviewers… there will be plenty of time for analysis later.
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