The Quality and Quantity of the Different Crops Grown in Tamale, Comparing the Past to the Present

In the Guinea savannah, Tamale, the capital of Ghana's Northern region, is a fast-growing metropolis. It has a long history of urban and peri-urban agriculture, and the city's current rapid growth necessitates an examination of the role of UPA in the city's long-term sustainability.

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UPA takes several forms in and around Tamale, with diverse agricultural farm types characterized by different spatial and tenure arrangements as well as access to irrigation facilities. Open space intra-urban sites, open space peri-urban sites, intra-urban backyard farms, isolated farms in interstitial intra-urban spaces, formal peri-urban irrigation schemes, and peri-urban non-irrigated farming are some of the main categories. In urban regions, leaf vegetables are the most common crops, whereas maize is the most common crop in the peri-urban wet season. Animal husbandry is not very market-oriented, and it is based on widespread fowl ownership and a bigger extent of peri-urban ruminant keeping than urban ruminant keeping.

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Farmers can obtain land through a variety of methods, including inheritance, borrowing, squatting, and self-ownership. The decline in accessible lands as chiefs give plots to developers is one of the most pressing concerns in the sector. Due to a lack of irrigation, farming is focused during the wet season. Farmers that grow in irrigated open space locations or have access to piped water can crop during the dry season, although water scarcity is a key barrier overall. Although it is not meant for commercial use, piped water is a typical irrigation source. A minority of people use wastewater to irrigate their lawns, which is dangerous to their health.

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