Professor Elvis Asare-Bediako, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), has warned vegetable growers against using polluted wastewater to cultivate crops because of its danger to human health.
According to him, heavy metals and other microorganisms are found in some sewage.
“If we use such water to grow crops, especially vegetables that are eaten raw, they go directly into the human system,” he cautioned
He recommended that farmers should drill boreholes to utilize as a supply of water for watering crops instead of making use of polluted water.
Prof Asare-Bediako issued the warning in an interview with the Ghana News Agency following a public lecture at Sunyani on the theme “Prescription for Better Environment and Prevention of the Spread of Non-Communicable Diseases: The Perspective of the Geoscientist,” at Sunyani, this year’s festivities commemorate the UENR’s tenth anniversary.
He further said the type of water used in watering some of the vegetables is worrying, and that’s where we contract food poisoning because heavy metal contamination also contributes to other health implications.
He pointed out that it was difficult to recognize vegetables cultivated with contaminated water that included heavy metals on the market, which he said made it much more detrimental to the consumer’s health.
Prof. Asare-Bediako also spoke out against the methods used to preserve vegetables in markets before they were sold to consumers, claiming that “they get even more polluted at the markets.”
He recommended that people should only buy vegetables from well-known sources.
According to the professor “Research indicates that determining the geo-availability of components holds the key to controlling the prevention of many environmental health issues,”