The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Tuesday cautioned West African countries against overlooking the implications of health and environmental problems in the quest for growing more food through the use of chemicals. Mr Edouard K. Tapsoba, sub-Regional Coordinator, FAO Sub-Regional Office for West Africa, said with increasing demand in food production, there was the possibility of an increase in agricultural chemicals, including pesticides. "It is important that in meeting this demand, health and environmental problems do not worsen," he told participants at the opening of a sub-regional consultation on the implementation of the Rotterdam Convention for English-speaking West African countries. The four-day meeting being attended by about 20 participants from Ghana, Liberia and The Gambia is to develop a national action plan or strategy for the implementation of the Rotterdam Convention. The Rotterdam Convention is an agreement that seeks to promote shared responsibility and cooperative efforts between exporting and importing countries for managing chemicals that pose significant risk in order to protect human health and the environment. Among the key provisions of the Convention is information exchange. For each chemical that is banned or severely restricted to protect human health or the environment a party is to notify the Secretariat, a summary of this notification is then circulated to all parties. Mr Tapsoba said in order for West Africa to benefit fully from the Convention, it was important that the agreement was effectively implemented. "The FAO is committed to agricultural production programme that are environmentally friendly," he said, adding that the FAO had been working in cooperation with its partners on developing tools and programmes to help countries manage pesticides more effectively, towards sustainable agriculture. He called on governments to be better prepared to enable them to cope with the task, as their countries ratified the Convention. Mr Daniel Amlalo, Deputy Executive Director, Environmental Protection Agency, reminded the participants that the control and management of chemicals called for multi-sectoral collaboration involving government, industry, civil society and non-governmental organizations. He called on the United Nations and other relevant organizations to support developing countries such as Ghana that were party to the Rotterdam Convention to strengthen their regulatory system so as to improve enforcement activities and control illegal international traffic in toxic chemicals. "Considering the global interdependencies, the challenge and risks to the environment and human health from chemicals require internationally coordinated responses," Mr Amlalo said. Mr Alexander Mangwiro, Programme Officer, Rotterdam Convention Secretariat, said it was important that governments took action towards ratification of the Convention to ensure the continued benefits from it. He said it was only when the Convention was widely adopted and implemented that it would make a contribution to the protection of human health and the environment. "In Africa, the pace of ratification has been fast, 32 parties have ratified the Convention out of 51", he said, and thanked Ghana, Liberia and the Gambia for becoming part of the parties to the Convention. The Convention came into force in February 2004.Source: GNA