The predominant industry in the region is agriculture (52.3%), with manufacturing forming 10.5%. Agriculture (including fishing) is therefore the main   occupation and employs more than two thirds of the work force in the region.

It has 9,830 km2, 4.1% of the Total land area of Ghana. Total cultivable land area is estimated at 7,864 km2 (about 80% of the Region’s Total Land Area). However, only 3,932 km2 (40% of the Region’s Land area) is under cultivation.

Of the 270,854 households, 62.6 percent are headed by males. In all Districts, except Gomoa West, a higher proportion of households engaged in agriculture are male-headed. The highest proportions of male-headed farming households are in Upper Denkyira East (73.4%) and Twifo-Hemang-Lower Denkyira (71.3%). In urban localities, except in Gomoa West, higher proportions of farming households are male-headed. Similarly, in rural localities, higher proportions of farming households are male-headed except Effutu (53.7%) and Gomoa West (52.3%) where higher proportions of farming households are female-headed. Households Engaged in Farming by Type of Farming Activities

The proportions of household heads engaged in various types of farming are presented in Table 11.3. The highest proportion of farming households are engaged in crop farming (94.1%), while about a third (34.9%) are into livestock rearing. Only a very small percentage of farming households are engaged in tree growing (1.7%) and fish farming (0.2%).Because of climatic and other geographical conditions, there are variations among Districts in the proportions of farming households engaged in various types of farming.

In Effutu, while only 60 percent of farming households are engaged in crop farming, the proportions are 98.6 percent in Upper Denkyira West and 98.1 percent in Assin South, two Districts which are wholly rural. Three Districts with the highest proportions of farming households engaged in tree growing are Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem (7.9%), Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese (6.6%) and Cape Coast Metropolis (6.3%). In all other Districts, the proportion of farming households engaged in tree growing is less than three percent. The four Districts with the highest proportions of farming households engaged in livestock are Effutu (53.2%), Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa (43.8%), Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese (41.5%) and Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem (40.2%). In all Districts the proportion of farming households engaged in fish farming is less than one percent.

The 2010 census data show that the total number of farms in the Central Region is 668,460 consisting of about 47 different crops (Table 11.4). Nearly all the main food crops are farmed in the Central Region. These include tubers such as yam, cassava and cocoyam; grains (e.g. maize, rice and millet); and tree crops including cocoa, oil palm and citrus. In terms of the number of farms (not acreage size), the top four crops are cassava (29.2%), cocoa (19.1%),maize (12.8%) and plantain (12.5%). About 58 percent of all farms in the Central Region produce food crops. Altogether, there are 270,854 farming households in Central region, mostly growing more than one crop. Nearly three-quarters of farming households cultivate cassava farms, while 41.1 percent have cocoa farms and about a third each grow both maize (31.5%) and plantain (30.9%). About one in five farming households grow oil palm.

Farming in the region is about evenly split among the three main types of cropping; mixed cropping (34.6%), mono cropping (33.5%) and inter cropping (31.9%). As expected, there are variations in types of cropping according to type of crops. Generally, a higher proportion of tree crops are mono cropped in contrast with vegetables which are fairly split among the three types of cropping. Thus, while 73.5 percent of „forestry trees? (such as teak), and 69.5 percent of rubber are mono cropped, the proportions for cocoyam and yam in this category are 7.9 percent and 11.3 percent respectively.