CropLife Ghana (CLG), in collaboration with CropLife Africa Middle East (CLAME), has organised a series of special anti-counterfeit training programs on agri-inputs (pesticides and fertilisers) for over 300 smallholder farmers in Akatsi, Awutu Senya Beraku (Korle-bu) and Awutu Beraku (Ahintia) in the Volta and Central regions.

The training according to Croplife Ghana was in response to complaints received from its secretariat through its constant interactions with smallholder farmer organisations across the country.

The farmers complain constantly about the use of pesticides and fertilisers that do not work as effectively as they have been informed to believe.

“These are having a huge toll on their scarce resources as well as the quality of their farms in terms of contamination of the soils,” said CropLife Ghana The training was therefore specifically targeted to enable them to distinguish between a registered and an unregistered agri-input product.

The farmers were also informed of a technology to minimise counterfeit or sub-standard agrochemical products usage by use of special strips on pesticide labels. This was done in collaboration with QualiTrace.

Apart from addressing issues of the counterfeit agri-inputs, the farmers were also sensitized on responsible and efficient application of pesticides and fertilisers, including the collection of the empty pesticide containers (for a possible container management scheme) instead of littering these on their farms and communities, and the concept of the Spray service Provider (SSP) scheme to avoid unnecessary accidents.

The technical training was facilitated by Mr. Bob Adjakloe, a retired Agricultural Officer.

The Program Manager of CropLife Ghana, Mr. Frederick B. Boampong, who gave the brief advised the farmers to use only pesticides and fertilizers from CropLife Ghana member companies to avoid any issues of counterfeit/fake or sub-standard agri-inputs, since products of CropLife Ghana member companies are legally registered and approved for use in Ghana by CCMC/EPA, PPRSD/MoFA and CRIG/COCOBOD.

CropLife Ghana, a plant science industry, is committed to promoting practices that promote responsible, safe and efficient use of pesticides and fertilizers; and also to sensitise farmers on ways of identifying and applying counterfeited or sub-standard products on the market.