The soil type is confined mainly to small amounts of subsistence cropping of cassava, okro, maize and other vegetables. The short type of grassland provides extensive grazing fields. The main crops grown here include pepper, okro, watermelon and maize.

Agriculture has been the mainstay of the economy of Ghana. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has noted that despite the unquestionable importance of agriculture, it is arguably the least known sector of many economies in terms of hard facts and statistics (FAO 2012). Any strategy geared towards reducing poverty and food insecurity must be based on timely and accurate information that can help to measure the impact of agricultural policies and programmes.

The census data analyzed in this chapter on agricultural activities include households who are engaged in agricultural activities by locality (rural/urban), types of crops cultivated, tree planting, rearing of livestock and breeding of fish.

Households in Agriculture

Table 7.1 shows the distribution of households in agriculture. Less than a tenth (7.1%) of all the households in the Municipality is engaged in agriculture. The percentage of households that are engaged in agriculture is slightly higher in urban areas (7.2%) than in rural areas (6.9%).

Table 7.1 indicates that crop farming is the commonest (88.9%) type of agricultural activity among the households engaged in agriculture, followed by livestock rearing (22.4%) and tree planting (2.4%). Fish farming is the least important (0.6%) agricultural activity undertaken by agricultural households in the Municipality. The percentage of the agricultural households that are engaged in livestock rearing is higher in rural areas (26.4%) than in urban areas (20.1). However, the proportion of the agricultural households that are engaged in tree planting is higher in urban areas (3.1%) than in rural areas (1.2%).

Types of Livestock Farming Activities

Table 7.2 shows that chicken (57.3%) is the most reared animal by households in the Municipality. Other types of animals reared by households are goat (25.2%) and sheep (7.7%). The average animal per keeper in the Municipality is 12.2.