Analysis of the Over Reliance on Traditional Biomass for Cooking in the Tamale North Sub-Metropolitan Area

Abstract

Traditional biomass energy is an important source of cooking energy for majority of people in the Tamale North Sub-Metropolitan area. It remains the main source of cooking energy for a large proportion of the population in spite of the availability of modern fuels such as LPG. Various reasons account for this phenomenon. This paper analyses the various reasons that account for the over reliance on the traditional biomass for cooking in the Tamale North Sub-Metropolitan area. Simple random sampling technique was applied to sample communities within the study area while stratified sampling in conjunction with availability sampling was used to collect data from a total of 300 respondents consisting of heads of households and food vendors. The study established among other things that, firewood and charcoal were heavily relied on due to its perceived low cost and easy accessibility (44.9 % and 23.7 % respectively). While kerosene, LPG and electricity are consumed because of their convenience to use (66.7 %, 64.4 % and 9.3 % respectively) and environmental friendliness 11.0 % (LPG) Also, various categories of cooking energy consumers were seen to have varying reasons for relying on traditional biomass as their main source of cooking energy in the Tamale North Sub-Metropolitan area. A chi-square analysis indicated that, the relationship between consumer’s main source of cooking energy and the reason for the choice of a particular source of cooking energy is statistically significant(