To safeguard both human health and the environment, the Okyenhene, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, has urged for a paradigm change away from commercial monoculture agriculture and towards sustainable organic farming.
He stated that the wide use of toxic agrochemicals in food production was another side effect of monoculture agriculture, which involves growing only one type of crop at a time on a given land.
Speaking at the fifth World Organic Forum in Kirchberg/Jagst in Frankfurt, Germany, Osagyefuo Ofori Panin said conventional farming could not continue to produce and prepare food in the old ways and expect to feed and sustain populations on methods that had serious deleterious effects on the environment, human health and the entire ecosystem over the years.
He, therefore, urged multinational agribusinesses not to place importance on profit margins ahead of protecting human health and nature.
“Diseases that medical science thought it had overcome are today coming back and we must eliminate the use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, veterinary drugs, genetically modified seeds and breeds, preservatives and additives in the food value chain to curb diseases and preventable disasters,” he said.
“Today, the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe which form the life support system are being threatened by a consistent spread of toxic chemicals in the soil from which our food grows and by reckless mining,” he said.
“In the end, it is poor indigenous people who consume such poisonous pesticide residue, especially in Africa,” he added.
He urged the world’s agribusiness to remember that they are a part of nature and that protecting and valuing nature is the first step in solving all of humanity’s issues.