Introduction

Agriculture is a very important economic activity in Ghana, employing about 60 percent of the economically active population. Households that are engaged in various agricultural activities, such as; crops cultivation and trees grown, type of cropping and acreages, type of livestock reared and fish farming in the Asante Akim North Municipality. This chapter therefore discusses households in the Municipality who are engaged in agriculture. It covers the types of farming activities and the percentage of households engaged in those activities. It also looks at households who are engaged in the various agricultural activities with respect to the type of locality.

Households in Agriculture

The 2010 PHC defined agricultural household as one in which at least one person in the household is engaged in any type of farming activity. As presented in Figure 7.1, about 72.7 percent of the total households in the Municipality are engaged in agriculture. As expected majority (79.7%) of the rural households are engaged in agriculture. Notwithstanding this fact, a sizeable proportion (64.4%) of the urban households also engage in agriculture.

Type of Farming Activities

The types of agricultural activities in the Municipality are presented in Table 7.1. The table shows that crop farming is the highest type of farming activity practiced in the Municipality (98.4%). Livestock rearing is the second highest (21.7%) while fish farming is the least type of farming activity practiced in the Municipality. A similar trend is depicted in both the urban and rural set up where crop farming recorded the highest and fish farming recorded the least.

Types of Livestock and other Animals Reared

Livestock rearing is the second highest agricultural activity in the Municipality. Table 7.2 shows the types and number of livestock reared as well as the keepers in the Municipality. The table indicates that a total of 66,977 animals are reared and kept by 3,585 persons with an average of 19 animals per keeper in the Municipality.

Among the livestock kept in the Municipality, chicken is the highest (56.4%) livestock reared in the Municipality and also has the highest proportion of keepers (42.0%). The second highest in the category is goat rearing (23.5%) with 36.1 percent of keepers. Fish farming recorded the least because inland and marine fishing recorded minute figures in the Municipality. The least number of livestock keepers are those who are into the rearing of snails and fish farming.