Editorial: Let there be wholesome foods free of pesticides application

The rise of dangerous chemicals to human health is increasing daily in our food systems, as concerns about this unwholesome development through fertilisers and pesticides are undermining the standards of our agricultural produce.

Reports of high chemical residuals being the reason for substandard allegations of why our agricultural produce are mostly turned back by the Western world must not be further allowed, even to local food consumption.

The limited extension workers to oversee the right application of fertilisers and other chemicals for food preservation is a great challenge to food safety as unscrupulous elements are going to the extreme of using substances like calcium carbide to quicken the ripening of many fruit foods.

There are cases of reported food poisoning that have claimed many lives, even as people are nursing diseases like cancer and kidney failure, which eventually lead to many untimely deaths.

Reports also confirmed that 65 % of imported chemicals into the country as agricultural inputs are hazardous to our soil and food systems, which many stakeholders had outrightly condemned for their negative effects on our soils, leading to degradation and high chemical residues in foods.

Discussion around unwholesome foods and soil healthiness are centred in the mouths of stakeholders even as major government agencies like Consumer Protection Council, National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control ( NAFDAC) and National Orientation Agency ( NOA) have been carrying out sensitisation on the harmful effects of using chemicals for preserving and ripening of fruits and handling of other farm produce.

The time has come to put an end to this unwholesome food system as we commend the effort being taken towards this direction by the Committee on Legislative Compliance of the Senate, given a directive to these agencies towards a wholesale foods system for a better health system.

This awareness must be extended to the use of fertilisers like urea with effective measurement through best agronomics practices being ensured by extension workers to farmers, as all this was part of the reason most of our produce are being rejected with colossal losses on our economy.