ABSTRACT
Cattle belonging to the riparian people of the Lower Volta are mostly kept in herds which graze on the east bank of the river. Very few riparian people apart from the Ada and others living south of Tefle own cattle which graze on the Accra Plains. In an attempt to investigate the pattern and motivation of cattle ownership a random sample of 5% of cattle population was studied, comprising eleven herds on the east bank. White, describing cattle on the Accra Plains in 1953–4 (White, 1954), reported them to be kept for prestige and not for economic purposes. Cattle owners are from both sexes and all walks of life: traders, weavers, fishermen, farmers, clerks, civil servants. Any new capital or technological input into agriculture will have to compete with the advantages which cattle investment offers. In spite of the low level of husbandry and poor cattle prices, no other investment available offers such attractive terms.
