Bekipay is a town and commune in Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

. It belongs to the district

Districts of Madagascar

Districts are second-level administrative divisions of Madagascar below the regions. Districts are in their turn divided into communes; while some of the districts on urban areas such as the district of Toliara consists of only one commune, most of the districts are divided typically into...

 of Mitsinjo

Mitsinjo District

Mitsinjo is a district in western Madagascar. It's a part of Boeny Region and borders the districts of Marovoay in east, Ambato-Boeni in south and Soalala in west...

, which is a part of Boeny Region. The population of the commune was estimated to be approximately 14,000 in 2001 commune census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

.

Only primary schooling is available. The majority 50% of the population of the commune are farmers, while an additional 48% receives their livelihood from raising livestock. The most important crops are rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

 and raffia palm

Raffia palm

The Raffia palms are a genus of twenty species of palms native to tropical regions of Africa, especially Madagascar, with one species also occurring in Central and South America. They grow up to 16 m tall and are remarkable for their compound pinnate leaves, the longest in the plant kingdom;...

, while other important agricultural products are sugarcane

Sugarcane

Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...

 and cassava

Cassava

Cassava , also called yuca or manioc, a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae native to South America, is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates...

. Services provide employment for 2% of the population.