Agrochemicals not solution to agricultural problems

GNA – Mr Daniel Moss, the Agro-ecology Fund Manager based in the US, has said the use of agricultural chemicals is not a good solution to solving numerous challenges facing the agricultural sector, especially in developing countries.

Chemical products mostly used in agriculture around many developing countries include; pesticides like insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and nematicides.

But, Mr Moss said those agricultural chemicals, aside their associated health hazards also contributed largely to environmental degradation and rendered farmers even poorer, and therefore should not be entertained globally.

Mr Moss said this during an Agro-ecology farmers forum and launching of the “Seed, Soil and Culture Project” in the Lawra Municipality capital, Lawra, in Upper West.

The project aims at supporting farmers to bring their culture to the forefront that illustrates how their beliefs, values, language, ethics, art, ways of learning and traditional farming practices embody agro-ecology.

Mr Moss said over dependence on agricultural chemical products only contributed to making foreign agro-chemical companies wealthier at the expense of poor farmers adding that modern agrichemicals made big business for those agro-chemical companies that sold seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.

The global community was therefore urged to stop supporting those agrichemical companies and rather back ideas that promote Agro-ecology and Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), which had the capacity to replenish soil fertility, preserve the environment and reduce health risk.

Mr Moss praised the work of CIKOD and “We are the Solution” Campaign programme engaged in increasing nutrition levels in communities and reducing health risk associated with high usage of agro-chemicals among others.

“I have so much admiration for the kind of work that you do; that is not about just growing food with chemicals but about nature protection that can keep producing food for generation after generation,” he said.

He added that was the way to go, and that developing countries did not need solutions coming from the US or from their colonial masters.

“The world needs your kind of solution to be able to feed the millions of people that are food insecure and to reduce diseases coming from chemical agriculture,” he added.

“I will tell your story in other places when we meet with other farmers and governments…the kind of work they need to support is not [agricultural chemicals] but the kind of model that is being practised by farmers here in Lawra and Nandom led by CIKOD to keep their families healthy and happy.”

GNA