Assessment of livelihood opportunities among farmers in the Shai Osudoku district of the Greater Accra Region, Ghana

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess livelihood opportunities among smallholder farmers in five communities namely Dodowa, Ayikuma, Agomeda, Asutsuare and Doryum in the Shai Osudoku district of the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. One hundred and fifty (150) farmers were selected from the Shai Osudoku district using multi-stage sampling procedure. Purposive sampling was used to select these communities due to their intensive involvement in farming. Furthermore, simple random sampling technique was adopted to pick 150 farmers for the survey. The study showed that farm households were able to ‘pair’ their farming activities with alternative livelihoods without abandoning their primary livelihoods, which is farming. The income levels of farmers from their primary livelihood activities were comparatively low with majority, 82.7%, earning GH₵100 or less every month compared with fewer farmers, 13.3 %, earning above GH₵ 150. However, more than half of farmers (58%) earned above GH₵ 150 every month from their alternative livelihoods. Again, farmers who decided to undertake their primary and alternative livelihoods concurrently have seen a rise in the level of their income and accordingly contributing to the reduction of income poverty among rural farm households.