Abstract
Small ruminants are kept as an adjunct to crop farming in the transitional zone of
Ghana. Not much has been done to catalogue the forage resources of this zone and their
extent of utilisation by men and women farmers, for gender specific interventions. This
study, conducted in the Ejura-Sekyedumasi District of Ghana, bridges this information
gap. Items eaten by small ruminants were elicited from 22 men and 19 women by the
freelisting method. Data analysis was with Anthropac and SPSS software. Smith¿s salience
index was calculated for each item. The 175 items mentioned included 37 wild trees and
shrubs, 37 natural grasses and forbs, 19 cultivated trees and shrubs, 28 crops, 38 crop
residues and 12 crop by-products. Pairwise ranking of all feed categories based on the
most used by stock was done using a men and a women focus groups. Again, eighteen men
and twelve women listed feeds they usually fed to small ruminants. Wild browse species
constituted 22% and 18.5% respectively of what men and women used. The most salient
was Margaritania discoidea for men (0.398) and women (0.278), followed by Pterocarpus
erinaceus with 0.256 for men and 0.210 for women. Both men and women ranked natural
pasture species first on a scale of 8, constituting 22.2% of what women fed but none by
men. Cultivated tree species accounted for 18.2% and 18.5% respectively of what men
and women fed. The most salient was Ficus spp for men (0.209) and women (0.309). Crop
residue accounted for 27.3% and 11.3% of what men and women fed respectively. The most
common, banana leaves, had a salience of 0.254 for men and 0.138 for women. Cassava peels
were the most salient crop by-product for men (0.361) and women (0.646). Though 28 crops
were listed as feed, and 13.6% and 11.1% of what men and women fed respectively were
crops, pairwise comparison by both groups ranked crops last. The most salient feed was
maize grains for men (0.749) and women (0.657). Farmers fed maize grains to tame stock.
It was concluded that women would rely more on feeds obtained near the homestead
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Book of Abstracts: Tropentag 2008: International Conference on Research for Development in Agriculture and Forestry, Food and Natural Resource Management |
Place of Publication | Göttingen |
Publisher | Cuvillier Verlag |
Pages | 408-408 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783867277556 |
Publication status | Published - 2008 |
Event | International Conference on Research for Development in Agriculture and Forestry, Food and Natural Resource Management: Competition for Resources in a Changing World: new drive for rural development - Duration: 7 Oct 2008 → 9 Oct 2008 |
Conference/symposium
Conference/symposium | International Conference on Research for Development in Agriculture and Forestry, Food and Natural Resource Management: Competition for Resources in a Changing World: new drive for rural development |
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Period | 7/10/08 → 9/10/08 |