Cattle Demography, Farm Operations and Challenges Faced by Herdsmen in The Ejisu/Juaben Municipality of The Ashanti Region of Ghana

Abstract

In Ghana, livestock production is largely managed by smallholding farmers. Many of the smallholder cattle farms are scattered in the country with varied challenges. This study was conducted to gather baseline data on cattle demography, characterize the farm operations, and identify the challenges faced by herdsmen on smallholder cattle farms in the Ejisu/Juaben Municipality of the Ashanti region of Ghana. The snowball method was used to identify 39 smallholder cattle farms and the purposive sampling method was used to administer a semi- structured questionnaire. Data collected were subjected to descriptive analysis using the SPSS version 22 (2013). In the study, all the herdsmen who responded to the questionnaire were men who practiced the Islamic religion. The nationalities of the herdsmen are Ghanaians (56.3%), Burkinabes (37.5%), Malian (3.1%), and Togolese (3.1%). About 65% of the herdsmen interviewed were between the ages of 16 and 45 years. Cow population per farm showed that about 81% of the farms had between 10 and 30 cows per farm. Destruction of crops (94%) by grazing cattle was the main challenge faced by the herdsmen. Followed by feed scarcity (90.6%). It was noted that some herdsmen (40.6%) could spend many hours in a day grazing and milking the cattle all year round without any day off for rest. Twelve and a half percent (12.5%) of the herdsmen also faced water problems. Apart from these challenges and the poor conditions of service for the herdsmen, the knowledge of the herdsmen in milk handling is also considered to be low.