The Concept of Innovation and the History of Cocoa Farming in Western Nigeria

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The history of cocoa production in Western Nigeria is an example of a successful innovation in the Schumpeterian sense of the term—a new productive activity which, when adopted by a number of producers, leads to economic growth and structural change within a given institutional and social context. Cocoa growing spread in Western Nigeria through the efforts of migrant farmers, many of whom relied on traditional, non-economic institutions, such as the lineage or ethnic community, to mobilize the economic resources they needed to establish cocoa farms. From an examination of the activities of migrant farmers in three Yoruba states—Ibadan, Ife and Ondo—it is argued that the spread of cocoa farming probably strengthened these traditional institutions. At the same time, it has effected significant changes in the volume, organization and geographical distribution of rural economic activity in Western Nigeria.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: