Introduction

Agricultural Sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic product (GDP) and to the national economy including foreign exchange was about 30 percent in the 2000s (ISSER, 2000, 2011). In the same way agriculture is an integral part of the Nabdam District economy and society. This is largely due to its contribution to employment opportunities and provision of food to the people.

The district’s economy is mainly rural and dominated by the sector, which employs a greater proportion of the youth. The key agricultural sub-sectors include crop farming, livestock rearing and tree planting. The farming practices in the district include mono cropping, mixed cropping and mixed farming. This chapter presents data on the agricultural activities in the district, with a focus on households in agriculture and types of farming activities.

Households in Agriculture

Table 7.1 presents an analysis of households by agricultural activities and locality. The two most significant agricultural activities of the people in the district are crop farming and livestock rearing. Tree planting and Fish farming are relatively new in the district. From the table, the district has 5,966 households. About 95.7 percent of all the households are engaged in agriculture. The main agriculture activities engaged in by households include crop farming, tree planting, livestock rearing and fish farming. About 98.1 percent of the agricultural households are engaged in crop farming, 88.4 percent in livestock rearing and 0.3 percent in tree planting.

Types of livestock, animals reared and keepers

 Table 7.2 shows the types of livestock reared in the District and the number of keepers. Livestock rearing is the second most important agricultural activity in the district and is a year round activity in the ruminant category, the three most significant are goats 31,174, sheep 20,946 and cattle 12,470.

In the bird category, there are 55,789 chickens, 49,106 guinea fowls and 337 ducks. Only four snails are reared in the district. The average livestock per keeper is high for guinea fowl (20), followed by grass cutter (18) and chicken (17).