Some agriculture experts have stressed the need for increased communication advocacy against the misuse of agrochemicals among crop farmers.
A strategic agriculture communication expert, Dr Ismail Olawale, said there was a communication gap between smallholder farmers in disseminating the inherent dangers in agrochemicals misuse.
Olawale reiterated the need to bridge that gap in order to get the right result in local crop cultivation.
“We need to correct the wrong impression of harmful agrochemicals. There are actually no harmful agrochemicals. The word harmful agrochemicals is relative. When agrochemicals are inappropriately applied, expired, or adulterated they are termed as harmful.
“However, the major problem we have in agrochemicals misuse by farmers is the communication gap.
“We have had a lot of communication advocating for farmers to appropriately apply agrochemicals, patronise genuine dealers, and also check for expired dates and expired produce.
“However, in most instances, more than 70 per cent of Nigerian farmers are smallholder farmers and are not that educated to the level of being able to read some of the cautions, some of the dates, some of the prescriptions on these agrochemicals,” Olawale said.
He also stressed the need for monitoring, evaluation and prosecution team against misuse of agrochemicals.
“Most Nigerian farmers get these agrochemicals from the open market, so the sales must be well monitored.
“Data from last year’s agricultural performance survey across the 36 states of the federation, most farmers complained about getting their agrochemicals from the open market.
“When these farmers get these products from the open market, the dealers, may likely sell adulterated or expired agrochemicals.
“To address the misuse of agrochemicals, we must complement advocacy, communication with monitoring, evaluation and prosecution of dealers who are likely to procure adulterated or expired products. Presently, farmers can hardly escape the use of agrochemicals, because human requirements for food are increasing while the population is also increasing,” he said.
He noted that factors such as insecurity, land encroachment, climate change and weak storage facilities result in food wastage.
“Factors like insecurity, land encroachment, climate change, weak storage facilities which results in food wastage will make farmers not to stay away completely from the use of chemicals.
“Farmers may likely want to adopt the planting of crops that will need agrochemicals to quickly backtrack growth to close the span of days or months for harvesting.
“The government should also be able to procure these chemicals genuinely and distribute them to farmers at affordable, subsidised amounts.
“When the government can do that, there are definitely a large number of farmers who will not want to patronise the open market. No farmer will want to do that. If the farmers know that they can get those appropriate chemicals, genuine chemicals, from government agencies like ADP, Ministry of Agriculture, as well as other government agencies they will not patronise unscrupulous traders,” he said.
An agriculture analyst and co-founder Corporate Farmers International, Mr Akin Alabi, urged farmers to adopt the use of organic components in the cultivation of food.
“Several agendas that have been pushed for the past three to four years now to encourage farmers to totally nullify the use of chemicals on crop cultivation in crop cultivation. Some agrochemicals have been detected to be quite harmful for human health, we need to encourage use of organic materials or compositions for crop cultivation.
