Farmers� Misuse Of Pesticides Could Kill Ghanaians If�

A Horticulturalist, and an Independent Parliamentary Candidate in the Tano North Constituency of the Brong Ahafo Region in the 2012 elections, Albert Hayford Biney has warned there could be several deaths in Ghana as a result of indiscriminate and uncontrolled use of chemicals by farmers. Mr. Biney thus wants authorities in the Agric sector to check the trend. He says farmers are fast imbibing a craze for the use of pesticides and insecticides on their crops without any expert advice from any reputable source. �Most of our farmers are vegetable growers but are found using chemicals like Confidor and others which are meant for cocoa crops and other tree crops and if we don�t take care, by the year 2020, you will see people dying because of these chemicals,� he cautioned. He is blaming the trend on the Ministry of Food and Agriculture for reneging on its mandate to provide extension services to farmers to educate them on best practices in the use and application of the right fertilizers and other agronomical chemicals. Mr. Biney wants the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ghana Standards Authority to urgently form a task force charged with the mandate to visit farms to test the chemical composition of their crops and advise farmers on the proper use of such chemicals. He said without this, Ghanaians could witness deadly health conditions in the near future.