Youth appeals for quality agro-chemicals on the market

March 29, 2011 Kwamoso (E/R), March 29, GNA - A group of young farmers in the Kwamoso area in the Akuapem North District had appealed to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Ghana Standards Board (GSB), to randomly select and test agro-chemicals on the market for their potency.

They claimed that some of the agro-chemicals, especially the glyphosate, supposedly used to kill a wide range of weeds, are not effective.

The group contended that as a result of that situation, they were compelled to spend more money to buy chemicals to repeat spraying of weeds before achieving the required results that just one spraying of good chemicals were expected to achieve.

They said such conditions made farming expensive and unattractive to the youth because despite the amount of money and efforts put into the process, the desired productivity was not achieved to make farming profitable.

Mr Augustine Bondoh, a spokesperson of the group, conducted the Ghana News Agency (GNA) round his maize farm to prove that the chemicals used in spraying the farms were not effective.

He explained that because the weedicides were not effective, he had to spend extra money to buy another brand of weedicide to re-spray the field and also buy new packets of seed maize to plant at extra cost.

Mr Bondoh said most of the weedicides did not contain the exact chemical components written on them, thus making them ineffective.

He said many of his colleagues had had similar experiences in recent days and therefore called on the EPA and GSB to work to protect the users of agro-chemicals.

GNA