Are Locally Produced Neem Seed Oil And Neem Seed Cake Key To The Growth Of Ghana's Organic Farming Sector?

Most Ghanaians are now aware of the importance of eating a balanced diet - one that includes vegetables and fruits.

And as more and more Ghanaians become health-conscious, and adopt healthy lifestyles, the presence of synthetic pesticide residue on most of the vegetables and fruits sold in markets across the country, is becoming a major food safety concern for many in Ghana.

Before our contact with the first Europeans who stepped on our shores, we lived in harmony with nature, and grew and ate organic food.

Today, there is a yearning for a return to the old ways of growing wholesome food. The use of natural pesticides such as pure neem seed oil, and organic fertilisers (including neem seed cake), could enable vegetable farmers in Ghana to produce synthetic-pesticide-free vegetables across the nation.

That there is pent-up demand across the country for fruits and vegetables grown without synthetic pesticides, and synthetic fertilisers, is not in doubt.

It is also a fact that many Ghanaians now worry about the wholesomeness of the food products they buy in markets and supermarkets across the nation - as Ghana becomes a dumping ground for dodgy imported food products from China and elsewhere.

The recent food scandal, in which a number of market traders who sold palm oil laced with the carcinogenic Sudan1V dye, were arrested, highlights the scale of the task the woefully under-resourced Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) faces.

The FDA has its work cut out policing the Ghanaian economy's domestic food production, and the importation, distribution and sale of foreign food products, across the country.

Luckily, however, in the case of the contaminated locally-produced palm oil, the FDA rose magnificently to the challenge - and dealt swiftly with the Sudan1V menace to public health in Ghana: with the help of the Ghanaian media.

However, many challenges still remain: for example, one never knows, whether or not the bananas or mangoes that one has purchased, were ripened artificially with carbide or not. Calcium carbide (CaC2), which contains traces of arsenic and phosphorous, is harmful to the human body.

Naturally, one's prayer, is that the fruits one purchases, were allowed to ripen the way  nature intended - slowly over a given period.

Luckily, all hope is not yet lost for those in Ghana who want to eat organic agricultural produce, but are unable to grow their own fruits and vegetables - because that is not a practical option.

In a recent exchange of emails with a member of the campaign group, Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG), concerning the Arusha New Plant Variety Protocol, which FSG is urging Parliament not to ratify, it emerged that plans are afoot to create an umbrella organisation, Ghana4Agroecology, that will bring together all those who want to see a steady growth in a more sustainable way of farming in the agricultural sector, as well as those who believe that for public health reasons, Ghanaians ought to have greater access to organic agricultural produce.

One's prayer, is that such an umbrella organisation will help provide a market for all those cottage industries in  rural Ghana that produce and sell high-quality pure cold-pressed neem seed oil and neem seed cake - many of whom are unfortunately struggling to stay in business.

This blog will be happy to provide contact details of the cold-pressed neem seed oil producers it knows, who produce high-quality neem seed oil and neem seed cake, to those readers who are keen to grow synthetic-pesticide-free vegetables and fruits.

Incidentally, speaking as a cocoa farmer, whose family grows cocoa without any synthetic pesticides and synthetic fertilisers, at Akyem Juaso (in Akyem Abuakwa), in the Eastern  Region, I find it frustrating that our nation's political class constantly focuses on increasing the application of chemical inputs in the cocoa industry - to enable Ghana produce 1 million tonnes of cocoa beans per annum.

Yet, in a world in which consumers of cocoa products increasingly prefer organic cocoa products, common sense dictates that we should be focusing instead on making Ghana the world's leading producer of organic cocoa beans - if we want to have a sustainable cocoa industry with a secure future.

As a people, should we not take the occassional rejection of consignments of Ghanaian cocoa beans in places like Japan because of the presence of pesticide residue in the beans, as a harbinger of things to come - and stop continuing to bury our heads in the sand about the issue of synthetic pesticide usage in the industry impacting Ghana's market share negatively in the long-term: and instead confront the challenge of switching to organic cocoa farming head on?

(Our ruling elites' lack of foresight and lack of imagination in that regard, is just so irritating. Such an unimaginative lot, Ghanaian politicians. Veritable blockheads, most of them. And contemptible incompetents, too. Cocoa farmers in Ghana must fight to ensure that the vested interests that make vast profits from the agro chemicals currently in use in the industry - who some of our nation's politicians and political parties  are beholden to  - don't deny us the opportunity for Ghana to switch to organic cocoa farming to secure the industry's future. But I digress.)

Be that as it may, the good news for Ghanaians who want to see an increase in the availability of organic agricultural produce in Ghana - particularly organic  fruits and vegetables - is that Ghana can produce all the pure cold-pressed neem seed oil, and neem seed cake, which its nascent organic farming sector requires, for use as an effective broad spectrum natural pesticide, and, as organic fertiliser, respectively.

Ghana will not need to import neem seed oil and neem seed cake to help grow its organic farming sector - unlike the billions of cedis equivalent in American dollars, needed to import agro-chemicals that pose a long-term threat to public health, into the country.

Locally produced high-quality neem seed oil and neem seed cake, are key to the growth of Ghana's organic farming sector.  They are affordable and always available - and, crucially, using both products in organic farming, will never impact negatively on our trade balance. Thank God, for small mercies, sayeth I. Amen.