The Member of Parliament for Asante Akim North, Andy Kwame Appiah-Kubi is advocating Parliament for the enactment of a legislation to promote organic agriculture practices in the country.
According to him, the enactment of a legal regime is necessary to minimize the abuse of the usage of chemicals in all forms for farming activities with its consequential effects on humans, the environment and trade of Ghanaian produce in the international market.
He observed that the absence of any such legal regime to regulate the use of such substances is hampering efforts for a safe environment and Ghana’s access to the international market at random.
Lawyer Appiah-Kubi made the call on the floor of parliament in a statement dubbed: Moving from synthetic agrochemical usage in fertilizer and pesticide to organic agroculture in Ghana”.
Several local research findings have established that the continuous usage of agrochemicals by farmers in the form of fertilizers, weedicides and pesticides have resulted in the contamination of the soil, water bodies, the environment and resultant harmful medical effects on human life, animals and plants.
Ghana is reported to have lost some $5 billion in 2019 from fruits and vegetables export earnings as a result of the use of synthetic pesticides on farm produce which were detected to have contain harmful substances and were either rejected or intercepted from entering the European Union market.
The Asante Akim North lawmaker stated that the development of a domestic organic agro-culture will lead to improvement in the health of citizens, reduce health risk to people along the agriculture value-chain, improve soil quality enhance productivity, protect biodiversity, improve access to the international market and improve profitability in farming.
