Poverty Dimensions of Public Governance and Forest Management ...

Annex 2: 8
intercrops (maize-cassava and groundnut-cassava) are more important. Cassava monocrops are also important at Subinso and
Kokoago, and tomatoes at Kokoago.
2.2 Farming strategies
Within the Brong Ahafo transition zone five styles (or underlying strategies) of farming can be found, which reflect different
degrees of intensification or commercialisation of agriculture and different paths to increased production:
• Extensive cultivation using land tilling and mounding technologies within a distinct bush fallowing system in which
land is rested for three of more years. Yam is frequently the most important crop in this system, but is usually
intercropped with a variety of other crops. Farmers are concerned with tree regeneration, and look for well
regenerated areas in which to make new farms.
• Extensive cultivation of monocrops such as maize or groundnuts, or a narrow range of intercrops, such as maizecassava
and groundnut-cassava, within shorter fallowing regimes. Farmers are less concerned with the regeneration
of the tree cover, but manage soils without application of inorganic fertilisers.
• Extensive cultivation of monocrops (usually maize) using inorganic fertiliser on land which has been stumped and
ploughed. Cultivation is on a permanent basis on the same tract of land.
• Intensive cultivation on smaller areas of land of vegetable crops using inorganic fertiliser. These are frequently
cultivated in complex cropping sequences alternating minor season and major season cultivation, extending periods
of cultivation and minimising fallows.
• Intensive cultivation of smaller areas, with complex multiple cropping sequences, which focus on risk management
and matching crops to soils. These usually occur in areas which were originally cultivated with inorganic fertilisers
on soils which have been stumped and ploughed, in which soils are often exhausted.
Intensification of agriculture can be achieved through:
! investment in high input agriculture on extensive land areas;
! investment in high input area over small areas in which the aim is to maximise the impact of limited investments in
inputs;
! extensive cultivation through investments in large amounts of hired labour to maximise the area under cultivation and
total yield;
! intensive cultivation using hired labour and intercropping which aims to maximise returns to labour by maximising
returns to smaller plots.