Cocoa farmers cautioned against fake insecticide

Opanin Debrah Amanor, Chief Farmer of Suhum Municipality in the Eastern Region, has called on the police to help apprehend persons selling fake chemicals to cocoa farmers.

Opanin Amanor was speaking to the Ghana News Agency at Akim Oda in the Birim Central, after visiting a number of his cash crop and cocoa farms there. He said some unidentified persons were going round cocoa growing villages with fake brand of Confidor, a cocoa insecticide, and other agro-chemicals on the market.

He added that the fake insecticide was branded with the same label as the original, but posed a threat to cocoa trees and pods when applied to them. Opanin Amanor, who is also the Municipal Chief Farmer noted that the fake chemicals were mostly common in the East Akim District, Birim Central and Suhum Municipalities.

He disclosed that vegetables, especially garden eggs, produced from the Suhum Municipality had sour taste and wondered if it was due to such fake chemicals.

Opanin Amanor appealed to the general public to promptly pass on to the appropriate authorities, any information on such fake products on the market, and said it was high time Ghanaians stood up against activities of fraudsters.