By Michael Kofi Kenetey
The Centre for Multi Agroforestry Interventions, CEMAI, a non-governmental organisation that is into advocacy of organic farming in Ghana, has organised a stakeholder’s meeting at Kwamoso on a possible manifesto input on organic agriculture from this year and beyond for eight farming community representatives in the Akuapem North Municipality of the Eastern Region.
The organisation made a call on the government to help commercialise organic agriculture in the country and also appealed to Ghanaians to embrace organic agriculture and patronise organic agriculture products.
The stakeholder’s meeting was also to put together a proposal to be given to government for implementation and advocate for a possible introduction of an additional ministry called the Ministry of Organic Agriculture And Commerce to promote organic farming and commercialization in the country.
The communities include Aboabo, Apatawsu, Addo Nkwanta, Yensiso, Bewase, Kwamoso, Asaase Kokoo and Onyaawonsu.
In an interview with GBC Sunrise FM at Kwamoso, the Leader of CEMAI, Samuel Kweku Darko, lamented that the overapplication of agrochemicals has destroyed the micro-organisms in the soil, which has resulted in soil infertility.
He noted that the application of agrochemicals is the cause of the many heart and kidney-related diseases in the country and called for the need to promote organic farming to protect the current and next generation from the increasing heart and kidney-related diseases.
Some of the farmers noted that most farmers do not know the side effects of the agrochemicals and sometimes do not read the precautions on the chemicals before applying them to their crops. They noted that the danger is that most farmers apply agrochemicals to their vegetables, and in less than three days, they are on the market for sale. They added that some fishermen even use agrochemicals to harvest fish, which is dangerous to human health. They spoke to GBC Sunrise FM about the need to embrace organic farming.
