TODAY, more than ever before, a growing number of health-minded consumers, especially those dealing with chronic illnesses, are switching to organic food.
A key motivation for consumers to eat such food is the belief that it is simply better and healthy for them.
It is widely believed that the use of organic fertilisers ensures that food items produced are free from harmful chemicals. As a result, end-consumers who eat these organic products are less prone to diseases such as cancer, strokes, heart diseases and skin disorders as compared to those who consume food items produced by using chemical fertilisers.
In spite of the countless health benefits of the production of organic food today, most food growing industries, in the rush to produce more crops to satisfy a growing demand, have resorted to using a lethal cocktail of pesticides to control diseases and insect attack.
This unfortunate situation, though admittedly has solved food crisis across the world, has significantly resulted in most cases in the production of poor quality food, which though appears attractive are harmful to the health of consumers.
A recent medical research has revealed that if one consumed an average fruit, say an apple or an orange, one would be eating over 30 pesticides, even after the fruit has been thoroughly washed. In another report, the quality of food has definitely gone down since the Second World War. For instance, the levels of vitamin C in today’s fruit bear no resemblance to the levels found in wartime fruit.
The report stated emphatically that pesticides residues in food have been linked to many diseases such as headaches, cancer, obesity, Alzheimer’s, some birth defects, tremor, lack of energy, depression, anxiety, poor memory, dermatitis, convulsions, nausea, indigestion and diarrheoa with dietary intakes of pesticides, mostly common in inorganic produce.
Unlike organic food that is known to contain 50 per cent more nutrients, minerals and vitamins, inorganic produce that has been intensively farmed with the application of artificial fertilisers may appear otherwise, though science is yet to confirm that.
Consequently, according to the research, one would have to eat more fruits nowadays to make up for the deficiency but that means one eating more chemicals, which is detrimental to the health of consumers who rather consider eating something that should be good for them.
Again, a Belgian medical research has found that women diagnosed with breast cancer are six to nine times more likely to have the pesticides DDT or hexachlorobenzene in their bloodstream compared to women who did not have breast cancer.
Given the various negative health implications of the consumption of inorganic produce, the nagging question that should engage the minds of every Ghanaian who is serious about good health is “how can it be possible to eat chemicals and not expect some form of reaction in your body since our bodies are delicately balanced wonderful machines which habour any form of foreign chemicals that are bound to irritate them at the least?”
Encouragingly, health consciousness among Ghanaians lately has been complemented by some farming organisations in the country, not the least in the oil palm plantation.
Now, some of these organisations have taken a sustainable approach to organic oil palm production and have been applying organic fertilisers.
Today, palm oil is the most widely used oil in the world, for both food and medicine. As a natural vegetable oil, it contains no trans fatty acids or cholesterol and is currently being used by health institutions to treat specific illnesses and improve nutritional status.
One of the companies in the country that has become a pioneer in sustainable agriculture and the leading grower of commercial organic oil palm plantation has been the Ghana Oil Palm Development Company (GOPDC) which is today proud to have created a sustainable model for the oil palm industry.
The company’s plantation at the Kwae and the Okumaning estates in the Eastern Region are all certified organic as no chemicals, pesticides or herbicides are used, resulting in a healthy superior quality product that attract a bonus on the world and the local market.
The products include crude palm oil, palm kernel oil, palm kernel cake, refined bleached deodorised oil, refined palm kernel oil, free fatty acid, olein and supper olein and stearin.
With its plantation cultivated on a 21,000-hectre land, GOPDC has integrated its palm production from seeder to farming, harvesting, mechanical pressing, physical refinery and finally to end products.
The company, which has been able to sustain its lead in the field of oil palm cultivation in the country started to reduce its agro-chemical usage in 1999. In 2002, the company received its first organic certificate from ECOCERT in France,a wordwide organisation that certifies organic produce.
As part of its focus on maintaining its market lead in the oil palm industry, every year inspectors from ECOCERT carry out an inspection round the plantation that covers its Kwae and the Okumaning estates as well as its over 5,000 outgrower and the smallholder farmers, the mills, refinery and its tank farm at Tema, which are all certified.
According to the Environmental, Health and Safety Manager of the compay, Mr Emmanuel Wiafe, his outfit strictly applies organic fertilisers and follows the rules of integrated pest management (IPM), which is a sustainable approach to managing pests by combining biological, cultural, physical and as a last resort chemical tools in a way that minimises economic, health and environmental risks.
He indicated that GOPDC, which receives annual certificate from the ECOCERT, as part of its biological pest control ensures that every pest is monitored throughout the year to ensure that the population of the species is below the threshold of becoming a pest, hence no need to apply pesticides to control their growth.
In addition, he said, as a measure to protect some of the animal species, some biodiversity plots have been created within the company’s concessions which are left untouched, a move that has also contributed to the control of pests as they form a habitat for predators mostly birds.
“The company also maintains buffer zones along the mainstreams in the plantation and agro-forestry activities are undertaken to enhance biodiversity”, he added.
In his opinion, in exceptional cases when all methods have failed to manage a serious pest outbreak, the company will resort to the use of registered agro-chemicals in restricted plots of which the company keeps records of all the plots that received the agro-chemicals. These plots, he added, go into a conversion period of three years and that the entire fresh fruit bunch collected from such plots will not be considered as organic for three years.
“After three years, no residues are left in the field and the plots become organic again”, he said, indicating that at the processing mill, the organic and inorganic fresh fruit bunch are separated upon arrival and that each time organic processing will take place, the cleaning procedures for mill, refinery and that tank farms are followed and all the activities are documented.
Given the consistent successful track record of the GOPDC in the sustainable production of organic produce over the years, the government should lend the necessary support to other industries in the country to also take a cue from the success of GOPDC and venture into the production of healthy organic produce as part of their contribution to ensuring the health and well-being of Ghanaians.
Surely, the cost of organic production is expensive but the long-term benefits should be given a priority over profits since it is widely believed that the health of the people always drives the economy.
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