Introduction

Agriculture is a crucial sector for reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goal One (MDG 1) in Ghana where agriculture has been the mainstay of the economy. Despite the importance of agriculture, it is the least known sector of many economies in terms of hard facts and statistics (FAO 2012). Any strategy 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. It employs more than half of the population on a formal and informal basis and contributes largely to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and export earnings. The 2010 PHC collected data on the following agricultural activities; crop farming, tree growing, livestock rearing and fish farming.

 Households in Agriculture

Table 7.1 shows households that are engaged in agricultural activities and type of locality in the district in 2010. Agricultural households are 33.7 percent of total households in the district. In urban locality, the agricultural households are 22.9 percent and in rural locality they are 43.5 percent.

About 84.8 percent of the agricultural households engage in crop farming, 43.9 percent rear livestock, 1.0 percent plant trees and 0.2 percent are in fish farming. Higher proportions among rural agricultural households engage in crop farming (90.1%) and tree planting (1.2%) compared to the proportions among urban agricultural households (73.6% and 0.6%, respectively). In livestock rearing, higher proportion among urban agricultural households engage in this activity (45.8%) than the proportion among rural households (43.0%).

Types of Livestock and Other Animals Reared

Table 7.2 shows livestock rearing and keepers in the district. Of the total number of livestock reared, chicken are 50.6 percent, cattle are 17.4 percent, goats are 17.3 percent, sheep 4.0 percent and pigs 2.2 percent. The proportions of many of the other livestock reared is less than 1.0 percent each. About 42.9 percent of livestock keepers rear chicken, 30.9 percent  keep goats, 6.8 percent rear cattle,5.3 percent keep pigs and 4.8 percent rear sheep. The average number of livestock per keeper is 57 for cattle, 26 for chicken; guinea fowl is 18, 19 for sheep, 12 for goats, and 9 for pigs.