W. H. Beckett - Akokoaso: A Survey of a Gold Coast Village

Managing Editor: Charles Stafford

First Published in 2004 by Berg Publishers

Published 2020 by Routledge

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ISBN 13: 978-1-8452-0013-8 (hbk)

The survey described in this report was carried out between 1932 and 1935, but recent information of an allied nature is also included. The mass of data collected was analysed and seminaries prepared for departmental use. Various items of information have been provided for publication in Annual Reports (1932/33 to 1935/36), Report on the Social & Economic Progress of the People of the Gold Coast (1933/34 to 1937/38), Report on Economics of Peasant Agriculture, by Shepherd, Report of the Commission on the Marketing of West African Cocoa, The Gold Coast Farmer, and in The Gold Coast Yesterday & Today, a book by Paul Redmayne. A preliminary report was prepared, and a considerable amount of information from this report has been included in The Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, Vol. II by W.K. Hancock. The present report, written in 1941, was compiled after a complete check of the original data had been made, and follows broadly the lines of the draft report.

I am glad to acknowledge the interest taken in the work by Mr. G.G. Auchinleck, the Director of Agriculture at the time, who permitted me to carry out the survey. I was also fortunate in having the help of a colleague, Mr. J.M. Ward, for a few weeks when the survey was being planned. From my general outline he prepared the detailed questionnaire, the efficiency of which was demonstrated as the survey progressed, few changes or additions being found necessary in the list of about 300 questions. It happened also that he was in charge of the Oda district for a period and he was thus able to give advice and supervision to the field staff during that time. General supervision was afforded by Mr. C.L. Skidmore while I was away on leave. Mr. S.P. Pobee, an overseer who was sent on ahead to make contacts and who was resident in the village during the whole period, did useful work in fostering the confidence of the people, helped by a young man from the village, A.Y. Apeagyei, who was employed as a temporary assistant. Much credit is due to the other overseer, Mr. J.K. Amissah, who gave careful attention to details throughout the survey. His good memory enabled use to be made, when I was writing the report, of additional items of interest observed but not recorded at the time. On him also, with another overseer, Mr. H.B. Daniel, fell the laborious work of analysing the records, happily aided by that most useful assistant, the calculating machine.

W. H. BECKETT.

Accra, Feb. 1942.

Akokoaso is a village in the Western Akim district of the Central Province of the Gold Coast, and is situate at a road head about 7 miles east of the village of Ofuase, which itself is 22 miles from the town of Akim Oda on the road running north to Ntronang.

This village was selected as a centre for survey for a variety of reasons. Its position at the end of a byeroad had preserved it from the disturbing influence of through traffic. It is neither in the oldest cocoa areas of the East nor in the more rapidly developing new areas of the West. The farms are practically wholly between 500 and 600 feet above sea level, and deforestation is neither insignificant nor acute. In many ways it presented an approach to the modal cocoa village. Finally, the author had known the village and its people during previous years when serving as a District Agricultural Officer, and could count on their co-operation.

A meeting was held on 19th August 1932 with the Chief, Elders and people and the general idea of the survey and the reasons for it were explained and discussed, an African Overseer having been sent on two months before to form contacts and introduce the subject and to dispel any fears that Government had ulterior motives in wanting details of their farms. There was no difficulty in obtaining their permission to make the survey and their help in doing so. A deliberate slow beginning was made, the inquisitive nature and the amount of the data collected being systematically increased as added confidence was gained.