In terms of locality, agricultural households account for a little over half (55.7%) of the total households in urban areas as against a higher percentage of 83.3% in the rural areas emphasizing the agrarian nature of the district economy.

Households and types of farming activities

Table 7.1 shows that four types of agricultural activities are undertaken in the district: crop farming, tree growing, livestock rearing and fish farming. According to the table, the highest proportion agricultural households in the district are engaged in crop farming (95.9%), while 55.1 percent are into livestock rearing. Only a very small percentage of farming households are engaged in tree growing (0.9%) and fish farming (0.3%).

As expected a higher proportion of rural agricultural households are engaged in crop farming (96.8%) compared to urban agricultural households (93.0%). Livestock rearing is also relatively more common in the rural areas (61.4%) than urban areas (33.0%). Tree planting and fish farming are the least popular agricultural activity in both urban and rural areas.

Types of livestock and other animals reared

Livestock rearing is the second most important agricultural activity in Fanteakwa District. Table 7.2 shows the number and the types of livestock reared in the district. The 2010 census counted a total of 302,165 livestock of different species in the district, of which there were 17,904 keepers and an average of 17 per keeper. In the bird category, there were 204,356 chickens being reared in the district with 8,015 persons as keepers. Next of importance among the bird category is the rearing of ducks (4,183) with an average of 11 keepers per animal and Guinea fowls (953) with an average of 11 keepers per animal.

Among the ruminants, the top three were for goats (56,652) with 6,032 keepers, followed by sheep (22,590) with 2,664 keepers and cattle (4,257) with 183 keepers. The lowest number of ruminants being reared in the district was rabbit (1,586) with 49 keepers. The other kinds of livestock also reported included non-traditional livestock like grass-cutters (864), insects such as silk worm (149) and beehives (29) and reptiles such as snails (170).