Agriculture
Where cropland is, which crops are grown, and what the soil under it holds, district by district.
This module has no data yet. Tinga Lens does not show placeholder or example numbers, so this page stays empty of figures until real results are published.
About this module
Main crops Published model shows, for each district, the crop with the largest estimated crop area, and the five largest crops when you click it. There is also a map for each main crop: maize, cassava, yam, rice, plantain, cocoa, sorghum, pearl millet and groundnut. The figures come from SPAM 2020, a model that shares national and regional crop statistics out over a 10 km grid, using satellite maps of cropland and how suitable the land is for each crop. It is an estimate of the usual crop pattern around 2020, not a survey of what farmers planted. Grid cells are about the size of a district, so differences between neighbouring districts can come from the grid and should be read with care.
Crop data: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 2025. Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM) 2020 v2r2. Harvard Dataverse, doi:10.7910/DVN/SWPENT. This data was provided by IFPRI. IFPRI bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here. Tinga Lens added the 10 km grid up by district.
Cropland Observed Experimental shows how much of each district satellites saw as cropland in 2021, from the European Space Agency's WorldCover map at 10 m. It is a satellite classification, not a farm census. Small farms mixed with trees, tree crops such as cocoa and resting fields are hard to separate, so cropland is likely to be under-counted, most of all in the forest zone, where this map shows far less farming than the Crops and Human Pressure tabs. Districts where that is likely are outlined with a dashed line. Download crop areas for every district (CSV).
Soil Published model shows, for every district, the average of a soil property in the topsoil (0 to 20 cm): nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, pH, organic matter, clay, sand and bulk density. Every district is compared on the same basis, the average over all its land, so the colours can be compared across the country. In the panel, districts with at least 1 km² of mapped cropland also show the average over that cropland and the deeper soil (20 to 50 cm). The values come from iSDAsoil, a computer model that predicted soil properties across Africa at 30 m from thousands of soil samples and satellite data. They are predictions, not soil tests: check any site with a soil test before a decision. Download every soil value for all 260 districts (CSV).
How to read them. These are model predictions, not measurements, and they are not a soil test. They show broad patterns between districts. They do not tell a farmer how much fertiliser to use, and they can be wrong for a single field. The shading is relative: the "highest fifth" is higher than most other districts, not necessarily high enough for a crop. For advice on a field, have the soil tested and ask your agricultural extension officer.
Total nitrogen is all the nitrogen in the soil, mostly held in organic matter, not the amount plants can use. Phosphorus and potassium are the "extractable" parts, the portions that a laboratory method can remove from the soil.
Soil fertility also depends on rainfall, water and management, which these maps do not show. Where a 1 km grid has been published for a soil property, the map can also show the values across Ghana, not only the district averages; tick or untick "Show values across Ghana" beside the legend.