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AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

Introduction

Ghana’s economy is regarded as agrarian, largely due to the sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) generally, labour absorption and to foreign exchange earnings. The contribution of agriculture to foreign exchange earnings averaged 45 percent in the 1990s but dropped to 40 percent in the 2000s (ISSER 2000, 2011). The sector’s contribution to GDP also declined from over 40 percent in the 1990s to 30 percent in the 2000s (ISSER, 2000, 2011). The district is predominantly agricultural based with about 85.3 percent of the economically active population in that sector (2010 PHC).

 

Households in Agriculture

The census defined an agricultural household as a household in which at least, one person in the household was engaged in any type of farming activity, namely crop farming, tree growing, livestock rearing and fish farming (GSS, 2012). The definition then identified households in which various agricultural activities were undertaken.

Figure 7.1 shows households engaged in agriculture by locality. The total number of households in Sefwi Akotombra District is 17,592 out of which 15,228 representing 86.6 percent of households are engaged in agricultural activities. In the urban areas, 1,100 households representing 69.0 percent of urban households (1,595) are engaged in agriculture while 88.3 percent (14,128) out of a total of 15,997 rural households are into agriculture.

 

Table 7.1 represents agricultural activities of households by locality. A high proportion of agricultural households (99.3%) in the district are engaged in crop farming, 25.7 percent are engaged in livestock rearing, 0.4 percent in tree planting and a smaller proportion in fish farming (0.2%). Only 0.9 percent and 0.2 percent respectively of urban and rural agricultural households engage in fish farming activities.

Types of livestock and other animals reared

Table 7.2 shows the distribution of livestock, other animals and keepers. There are 126,534 livestock and 5,686 keepers in the district. The average animal per keeper is 22.3. Chicken is the most commonly kept bird accounting for 64.1 percent of the total livestock. Among the four footed animals, sheep have the largest number (14,293) representing 11.3 percent with an average of 11.8 sheep per keeper. There are 12,019 goats which is about 9.5 percent of the total livestock in the district. The average number of goats per keeper is 8.9. Cattle constitute 2.2 percent of the livestock with an average of 32.1 cattle per keeper. Other animals are reared in the district though in very small numbers. Fish farming is practiced by 20 keepers (0.4%) with an average of 436 fishes per keeper. Snail farming is virtually none existent.

 

Date Created : 11/20/2017 4:13:12 PM