The Country Director of Eco Index Agro Solutions Limited, Mr Daniel Baisie, has called on stakeholders in the agricultural sector to help promote organic agriculture in the country.
He said with organic agriculture, Ghana would be able to produce enough food crops to feed the entire country and even go commercial with it.
Organic Agriculture is an agricultural system that uses fertilisers of organic origin such as compost manure, green manure and bone meal and also places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation.
Mr Baisie said this in an interview with the Ghanaian Times in Accra on Tuesday.
He said organic agriculture was currently being practiced in Ghana on a large scale which according him was the biggest organic farm in West Africa.
He said the farm, Golden Exotics located in Akuse in the Lower ManyaKrobo District of the Eastern Region had used organic farming to grow banana and some other crops on large scale.
Mr Baisie who is also an agronomist said it was time Ghana stopped the importation of some food products such rice, tomatoes, onions adding that such food crops could be grown in Ghana throughout the year.
“We are capable of producing various food crops here in Ghana, even right now I know farmers who are growing strawberries right here in Ghana, they are also growing apple, so what is that we cannot grow, even if we are growing these three temperate crops in Ghana, what other crops can we not grow,” he stated.
He said it was important to ensure the practice of sustainable farming which would not destroy the ecosystem adding that “when we are not degrading and destroying our bio diversity, we will be able to have a good season for every food crop.”
Mr Baisie said in order to have the right ecosystem to grow various food crops throughout the year, there was the need to mainstream some useful trees with some other plants while growing vegetables at the same time explaining that, it would help regulate the right temperature for plants to grow.
He called on governments to help stop the importation of some food crops such as rice, tomatoes onions and other food crops that could be grown in the country.
He also urged them to ban the importation and use of chemicals would have negative impact on the land and food crops.
BY JEMIMA ESINAM KUATSINU
