Figures & data
Figure 1. Locations of the rural communities and weather stations in the study area of the northern region of Ghana: A = Tamale Airport, D = Daboya, N = Nyamkpala, P = Pong Tamale, S = Savelugu, DN = Dimabi-Nayili, DK = Dimabi-Yakura, DY = Dimabi-Yapali, Z = Zoggu, Y = Yong, L = Langa, Ny = Nyeko and Ch = Challam; sister villages: DN-DY.
Figure 2. Structure of a study community formed by a single village (in case 1) or by sister villages having different names (in case 2). Contiguous cropped areas surround houses and scattered cropped areas in the periphery of homestead. Domestic animals (fowls, goats, sheep and few cattle (2–5 heads)) are kept within homesteads.
Figure 3. Boxplot of annual rainfall data from 1980 to 2012 for each of the five weather stations in the region of northern Ghana.
Figure 4. Mean monthly rainfall and mean temperature as average of weather data (from 1980 to 2012) obtained daily at five stations in northern Ghana.
Table 1. Selected properties of soils from fields located in homestead and in the periphery.
Table 2. Selected soil properties in fields located in homesteads and in the peripheries of communities for the two study districts.
Figure 5. Variation in OC, pH1:1, mineral N, available P and K with distance (PD0) from reference O within homestead described in .
Table 3. Some major practices of farmers interviewed (sample size, n = 160) in the study rural communities.
Figure 6. The relationship between the frequency of field cultivation over the last five years (reference period = 2008–2013) and the distance of fields from homesteads.
