Introduction

Agriculture is the backbone of the economy of the district and Ghana as a whole. Agriculture production is mainly the subsistence level engaging a much larger number of people than would have required if modern mechanization were employed

This chapter provides a description of household members and heads of households engaged in agricultural activities. These include crop farming, tree growing, livestock rearing and fish farming. Excluded from this discussion are those engaged in fishing, hunting and other non-farming agricultural activities.

Agricultural and non-agricultural households

An agricultural household is one that engages generally in agricultural activities or is said to be agricultural household if one of its members engages in agricultural production even if not earning from agricultural activities alone

Households in Agriculture

Table 7.1 reveals that 17,419 (60.6%) households engaged in agriculture, out of which 16,116 are into crop farming representing 92.5 percent. Of this number, 13,527 (96.0%) are in rural areas compared to urban (77.6%). Households engaged in fish farming (0.2%) form the least proportion among the various agricultural activities. The other households are into livestock rearing (41.5%) and tree planting (6.6%).

It must be noted that in view of the fact that one household could be involved in more than one agricultural activity, there is the possibility of multiple response here, hence, the sum of the percentages for the various agricultural activities may not yield a  hundred (100) percent

Types of Livestock and other Animals reared

Table 7.2 gives a distribution of the number of livestock and keepers. In all, there are a total of 127,381 animals being kept by 10,413 owners. This gives an average of 12.2 animals per keeper. For chicken rearing, which has the highest number and keepers, there are a total of 72,954 chickens with 4,306 keepers which gives an average animal per keeper as 16. This means that, chicken alone constitute 57.3 percent of animals being reared and a corresponding 41.4 percent keepers. Specifically for goat rearing, which has the second highest number of animals and keepers, there are a total of 32,057 animals with 4,075 keepers giving an average of 7.9 goats per keeper. This translates into 25.2 percent of animals and 39.1 percent keepers.