Agricultural Activity

 Introduction

In the 2010 PHC, an agricultural household was defined as one in which at least one person in the household was engaged in farming/fishing/animal husbandry. Just as Ghana’s economy, Bodi District is regarded as an agrarian district with more than half of the population engaged in agricultural activities. This chapter discusses households in agriculture by size of household and type of locality as well as the various types of farming.

Households in Agriculture

Majority of households (90.3%) in the district are engaged in agriculture. Information in Table 7.1 portrays the number of households in agricultural activities and locality.There was a wide variation among localities in the proportions engaged in agricultural activity. Whiles in the rural localities, 90.3 percent of households are engaged in agricultural activities, only 9.7 percent of households in the urban communities are into agriculture. This is clearly presented in Figure 7.1, which shows households, by agricultural activities and locality. The wide variation between rural and urban areas is to be expected as urban areas offer households a wide variety of livelihood opportunities beyond agriculture.

Types of agricultural activities

The four types of farming considered under the 2010 PHC were crop, tree, livestock and fish farming. From Figure 7.1, 90.2 percent and 9.8 percent of crop farming take place in the rural and urban centres respectively. Although tree planting is rare in the District, 25 percent of the activity is undertaken by urban dwellers.

Types of Livestock and other Animals Reared

Generally, livestock commonly reared in Bodi District as reported from the 2010 PHC are chicken (49.5%), goat (about 11.3%) and fish farming (about 18.7%) of the total number of livestock in the district of 77,873. As shown in Table 7.2 there are 2,986 livestock keepers in the district and the average animal per keeper is 26. There are 41,528 fishes with 63 keepers in the district with the average being 231. There are 51 farmers who rear 415 pigs in the district with average pigs of eight. There are 9,908 sheep reared by 542 farmers with each an average of 18. There are also 38553 chickens with an average of 25 to 1,563 farmers.

The large variety of livestock reared suggests a high interest in animal rearing in the Bodi District. Also, the large number of livestock keepers and the relatively small number of animals per keeper suggest that animal rearing is largely undertaken on subsistence basis. Nevertheless, the huge interest in livestock provides opportunities to improve the rearing of livestock as supplementary income and food for the population of the district.