Africa: Vegetable farmers in urban Ghana don’t worry much about food safety – but they should
Vegetable farming practices in Kumasi are potential threats to public health.
By Kabila Abass
Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography and Rural Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
The Conversation
Aug 11, 2020
Excerpt:
The study area is dotted with vegetable farming sites, cultivated throughout the year. Most of these farmers depend on polluted streams to irrigate their crops. Laboratory testing of sampled irrigation water and vegetables showed contamination beyond the acceptable level for human consumption.
The farmers in our study did not accept that the quality of water they used could potentially cause diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera. One of them had this to say:
There are no contaminants or germs in the water. We have been using this water for a long time without any problem … Contaminated water can’t produce healthy crops like these ones.
The study participants all agreed that wastewater for vegetable irrigation could compromise the quality of the crops and affect human health. Yet, the majority said they would water their crops with contaminated water if they had no other options. This response was not surprising. It was clear from what they said that they would do what they had to in order to survive. A respondent stated:
I have a wife and four children. My source of livelihood is this vegetable farming. This is all I do for a living. If dirty water is the only one available, I would have no option but to use it.
Another worrying aspect of their farming practices was the misapplication of pesticides and fertiliser. Respondents agreed that wrong application of agrochemicals can pose negative health consequences. But this knowledge did not match the actual practice in the field. A respondent put it this way:
Since I have been in this business for long, it is the experience that counts. We don’t follow strictly any standard measure when applying chemical and manure to our crops. Yet, we produce good-looking vegetables.
