PESTICIDE DEALERS MOBILIZE AGAINST CHEATING COLLEAGUES

2007-08-23T04:14:00.000-07:00

GAIDA facilitates police crackdown on adulterated pesticides

Fair trade, clean business, and reliable products are generally crucial to the growth of the agricultural inputs business. Considering the fact that issues of the environment are no longer limited to local settings, problems associated with the adulteration of pesticides by some pesticide dealers creates real concern for a wide variety of interest groups. It is from this background that the Ghana Agricultural Inputs Dealers Association (GAIDA) initiated action towards arresting a growing practice of counterfeiting, misbranding, adulteration and mislabelling of pesticides by unscrupulous and cheating dealers in the in Ghana.

Stakeholders from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) as well as farmers had observed that some pesticide dealers were adulterating and faking pesticides, using methods such as the alteration of expiry dates of pesticides, the change of labels on pesticide containers, and the preparation and bottling of mixtures in already used pesticide containers. These criminal and unethical practices are attributed to the desire of these bad dealers to make huge profits. These unscrupulous dealers exploit the low literacy levels of their customers, most of whom are smallholder farmers, who cannot tell the difference between fake and genuine products.

In the face of these challenges, and to help address them, GAIDA, with the support of the BUSAC Fund engaged stakeholders from both the public and private sectors in consultative sessions on how best to eradicate, or at least, significantly ameliorate this problem. GAIDA discussed with its members and other dealers outside its membership, the far-reaching effects of adulterated products. They also educated their customers, the farmers, on how to identify and avoid the purchase and use of adulterated and fake products.

GAIDA, together with regulatory and policy formulating establishments like the EPA and MOFA, has now designed a roadmap with strategies to address the issues associated with faking and adulterating pesticides in the country. They have also supported the police swoop on bad dealers in the Central, Eastern and Western regions of Ghana; leading to the arrest and prosecution of culpable dealers.

The agricultural sector is still a major part of Ghana’s economy, and it is estimated to employ over 50% of the country’s labour force. GAIDA’s initiative, and particularly the advocacy financial support provided by the BUSAC Fund has been very much appreciated by the two main public agencies, MOFA and EPA, that have the responsibility of protecting the integrity of the agricultural inputs business. GAIDA points out that, as a consequence of this advocacy initiative, farmers and agricultural pesticide users have regained confidence in products on the Ghanaian market. There has also been more improvement in the business ethics of agric-input dealers in the southern parts of the country. Moreover, registration of agric-input dealers with the EPA has increased, and so has membership of GAIDA.