‘Ban importation of Genetically Modified foods’

Mr Thomas K. Abroni, Executive Director of Voice of Developing Communities (VODEC) has enjoined government to ban the importation of Genetically Modified (GM) foods to guarantee the safety of Ghanaians.

He said: “GM Foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, metabolic, physiological and genetic health.”

The Executive Director who made the call in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency on Thursday said the issue of Genetically Modified Organism which has been making news in recent times, needed serious attention.

According to the statement, observation of animals-fed GMOs reveals risk of infertility, immune deregulation and accelerated aging. “Government urgently needs to wake up and rise to the challenge and halt the inclusion of GMOs in our food chain and signing of the Plant Breeders Bill,” he said.

He suggested to government to put up programmes that would make farming an attractive sector, and tool the national meteorological services for accurate prediction of the weather.

Mr Abroni said leaders ought to engage in managing carefully the combination of crises in the agric sector, by implementing subsidies, good credit schemes, to draw more people into the agro-industry and stop the importation of maize and rice.

He expressed worry that agriculture in Ghana has remained largely a non-scientific and non-technology driven venture, depending only on rain and manual tools like cutlass and hoe.

He said there must be a healthy link between small and large scale farmers, while government pursued a policy to construct small scale irrigation schemes, organic fertilizer, transfer relevant technologies, and provide extension services as well as exploit the benefits of research findings.

“We need a radical shift in our agric system that answers our foods needs, food security and that lie in the takeover of huge tracks of land for agricultural purposes,” said Mr Abroni.