Pesticide Misuse: A major Threat To Farmers Health, Food

The misuse of pesticides, some of them banned, in Northern Ghana is seriously affecting the health of farmers, sometimes with fatal consequences, and contaminating crops, a new survey by Northern Presbyterian Agricultural Services has revealed.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 1 to 5 million cases of pesticide poisoning occurs every year, resulting in 20,000 fatalities among agricultural workers, most of them in developing countries including Ghana. Another estimate is that pesticides misuse cause 14% of all known occupational injuries in agriculture and 10% of all fatal injuries. African farmers use only around 4% of the world’s pesticides but pesticide use is widespread. 

Also, a 2008 study – the most comprehensive analysis of pesticide contamination on farmers in Ghana according to Reverend Daniel Oppong-Wereko, National Director for Development and Social Service of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, found the presence of organo chlorine pesticide residues, including DDT, in breast milk and blood of vegetable farmers. Some women farmers had accumulated pesticide residues in breast milk above the ‘tolerable daily intake’ guidelines beyond which they had adverse health effects on their children. Yet policy makers, he said, know little about the real extent of pesticide poisonings since there are no official figures.  

Christian Aid partner, Northern Presbyterian Agricultural Services found in their survey, that more than a quarter of the farmers interviewed, had suffered from directly inhaling pesticides whereas; many had also spilt the chemicals on their skin. 

Pesticides are often kept near food stores – a practice believed to have caused the deaths of 15 farmers in late 2010 through seepage. In addition, farmers regularly put the wrong pesticides on crops, use stocks that have past their expiry date, and spray too close to harvest time, the survey revealed.

The survey entitled: “Ghana’s Pesticide Crisis; The Need for Further Government Action”, says seven banned or restricted pesticides appear to still be in use in Ghana, with the government failing to act, despite the fact that: “numerous academic studies show alarming levels of poisoning” among farmers and the public.

Launching the report in Tamale, the organization called for better training and routine health checks for farmers, as well as monitoring of the chemicals used, and routine testing of the food produced.

It also called on the Ghanaian government to move away from reliance on pesticides in farming and invest more in sustainable ways of farming.

The survey covered nearly 200 farmers in 14 villages in the Upper East Region of Ghana, but its findings are inevitably common to many developing countries, said Kato Lambrechts, Christian Aid’s Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer for Africa.

The report underlines how difficult it is for governments in the developing world to monitor properly the pesticides used, and the way they are applied by farmers, she said, adding that it highlights the need for governments to make concerted efforts to support farmers to move away from intensive farming techniques towards more sustainable methods that don’t require the use of lots of chemicals.

According to her, at present, the pesticide trade in Ghana is so lucrative that advertising is prominent and there are now as many as 50 importers, some of them bringing in illegal supplies. These are passed on to unscrupulous dealers who double as agricultural advisers to the farmers because, government extension services are inadequate.

The report says that farmers misusing pesticides risk cancer, birth defects, impotency in male farmers and damage to the central nervous system. More common problems include skin irritations, headaches, general body weakness, difficulty in breathing and dizziness. 

Thus, it reports suspicions, that the 15 deaths thought to have occurred in November 2010 from pesticides leaking into food stocks might be just the tip of the ice berg, with some senior health officials believing that a number of ‘natural’ deaths might also be attributable to pesticide use.

The alternatives to pesticides that the report advocates include various sustainable agricultural practices such as organic farming – involving no use of chemical pesticides –and integrated pest management (IPM) – which reduces but does not usually reject entirely the use of chemicals.

Organic approaches can also involve crop rotation, intercropping, and planting of trap plants and plants that serve as habitats for beneficial insects. If preventive measures are insufficient, insecticides derived from natural plant extracts, natural soap or minerals or plant extracts such as neem can be applied. 

It says that experience has shown that organic farming approaches can be successful in Northern Ghana, and are often more productive and cost-effective than reliance on chemical pesticides. But they are not being widely pursued because farmers have little information about them and the government mainly promotes pesticides. 

The Northern Regional Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Joseph Faalong, who launched the report on behalf of the Minister for Agriculture said government, has had several interventions put in place both at the national and regional levels to mitigate the dangers of pesticides misuse.

He cited interventions such as government’s encouragement of the Occupational Safety Unit of the Ghana Health Service to produce new programmes meant for public awareness creation on the dangers of pesticides misuse, and continuous efforts of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address the influx of pesticides onto the market and regularly impressing upon the pesticides firms to comply with the licensing regulations.

Mr. Faalong called on Parliament to expedite action on the draft subsidiary legislation of the EPA Act to ensure a better environment, adding that, there is the need to ensure the establishment of the Plant Protection Fund for the enforcement of pesticides laws put in place by the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Department. 

The MoFA Director called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in the Country to immediately develop, as part of their Medium Term Development Plans, a coherent plan on the use of alternatives.

Mr. Joseph Faalong further stressed on the need for the various agencies responsible for addressing issues of pesticides use such as the EPA and MoFA Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate to step up strategies to get exporters and farmers educated on policies and regulations regarding safe use of pesticides in the country.