Senior Lecturer at the Department of Public Administration and Health Services Management at the University of Ghana, Dr. Gordon Abekah-Nkrumah has urged the Ministry of Agriculture to promote household gardening as part of the Ministry’s food and job planting model.

He said that promoting backyard gardening can provide people with access to high quality and affordable vegetables, which are crucial in combating non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show on July 1, he said, “People can be encouraged to do household gardening so that they can have access to good quality vegetables and which is affordable.”

According to Prof Abekah-Nkrumah, NCDs are lifestyle diseases which can be prevented through education and regular exercise.

He added that diet also plays a big role in preventing NCDs.

“Another thing is exercise, which doesn’t cost much. It’s about going to walk. I live on the university campus and morning, evening, I find droves walking around. Sometimes, we like to give excuses because of the economic conditions which I admit is hard.”

“We still eat anyways, and we are saying that we need to be a bit diligent and careful about what we eat. If we don’t do that the cost of treating the disease is high. Take hypertension, the direct cost per month on the system is about 4.3 to 5.7 million dollars and that is a lot,” he said.