Developing Technological Capabilities in Agro-Industry: Ghana's Experience with Fresh Pineapple Exports

Abstract

This article examines the emergence and trajectory of a new agro-industry in Ghana, the pineapple export industry, using the technological capabilities approach. It explains the limited expansion of the industry and its declining competitiveness in the face of new competition by looking at how Ghanaian exporters developed technological capabilities initially and the incentives and disincentives to building on those capabilities. The article argues that at the heart of the industry's crisis was an inability to further develop technological capabilities. The crisis had systemic features that have broader implications for developing new agro-industries in Ghana as well as other African countries.