Assessment of Forage Species on Community Rangelands, A Case Study In Tolon District, Ghana

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VIII, Issue I, January 2021 | ISSN 2321–2705

Assessment of Forage Species on Community Rangelands, A Case Study In Tolon District, Ghana

J. N. Ofori¹, E. Njomaba², E. Donkoh^3
1Dept. of Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation, Wageningen University and Research. Wageningen, the Netherlands.
²Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen University and Research. Wageningen, The Netherlands
³Department of Range and Wildlife Conservation, University for Development studies. Tamale, Ghana.

Abstract: The study was conducted in ten communities in the Tolon district of the Northern region of Ghana. The objective of this study was to identify the forage species on community rangelands and to know the trend conditions of forage species on the community rangelands. Ten communities were randomly selected from the study area for the research. The random sampling technique was applied to select ten (10) communities of which 10 people were selected in each community through the snowball sampling technique. One hundred questionnaires were administered during this study to collect the data. Quadrats of 10m ×10m were laid to identify species on rangelands in the district. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences software version (16.0) and Microsoft office excel (version 2013). Male and female respondents constituted 97% and 3% respectively. Majority (78%) of the respondents were involved in sheep rearing while the least 3% were also engaged in pig farming. The study identified thirty-seven (37) forage species in which Setaria pallide fusca was the species that had the highest frequency whereas Strychos spinosa, Pennisetum purpureum, Boerhavia coccinea, Eugenia subherbacea. and Hannoa undulate was the forage species with the lowest frequency. Five species that are going extinct were also identified in the study. Pterocarpus erinaceus was the species that appeared most among the forage species which are reducing whiles Detarium microcarpum, Securinega virosa, Hyparrhenia rufa, and Acacia nilotica had the lowest frequencies. To conserve forage availability, there should be a reduction in overexploitation of the species and also to encourage the cultivation of forage species especially Pterocarpus erinaceus, Detarium microcarpum, Securinega virosa, Hyparrhenia rufa, and Acacia nilotica to sustain the forage species.

Keywords: Rangelands forage species, deforestation, and encroachment.

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