Introduction

Agriculture is a critical sector for reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Ghana where sector has been the spine of the economy. 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, accurate, and reliable information that can help to measure the impact of agricultural policies and programmes.

One of the major difficulties encountered when assessing men and women’s contribution to agricultural development was the non-availability of gender disaggregated data with respect to the roles of both sexes in agriculture production.The 2010 PHC for the first time administered questionnaires for households in agriculture.This chapter discusses household members engaged in agricultural activities and the type of activities which include crop farming, tree growing, livestock rearing and fish farming.

Households in Agriculture

Figure 7.1 presents the proportion of agricultural and non-agricultural households in the THLDD. The figure shows that agriculture and non-agricultural households constitute 81.5 and 19.5 percent of total households in the district respectively. Therefore, any efforts at improving the living standard of the people in the district must take into account the needs of farm households as critical step.

Types of Farming Activities

Figure 7.2 shows the type of agricultural activities households are engaged in. The figure clearly shows that there are more rural than urban households engaged in all four agricultural activities. The highest proportion of households engaged in agriculture, are into crop farming (78.2%) in the rural areas and 21.8 percent in the urban. Also, 95.3 percent of households are engaged in tree planting in the rural areas and 4.7 percent in the urban. Figure 7.2 also indicates that 84.5 percent of households are engaged in livestock rearing in the rural areas as against 15.5 percent in the urban areas. A sizable proportion of households are also engaged in fish farming (66.7%) in the rural areas and 33.3 percent in the urban.

Distribution of Livestock and their Keepers

Table 7.1 shows the distribution of livestock and keepers in Hemang Lower Denkyira District.There were a total of 67,012 livestock being reared by 4,177 keepers with an average of 16 animals per keeper in 2010.Chicken recorded the highest livestock of 49,077 constituting 73.2 percent. This is followed by goats with 8,357 constituting about 12.5 percent. The district had 4,561 sheep which is 6.8 percent of the total livestock in the district, and other livestock constitute less than 1 percent. Chicken recorded the highest number of keepers, 2,396 followed by goats (1,070) and sheep (412). This brings the average numbers of chicken, goats and sheep per keeper to 20, 8 and 11 respectively.