The bulk of fresh vegetables consumed in Ghana’s capital of Accra comes from small scale vegetable growers in the city.
For some of the farmers, growing vegetables is hobby, for many others it’s a main source of livelihood.
The gardens are usually sited along the major drains and are irrigated with water from these gutters.
But there is concern the fresh vegetables become contaminated arising from the untreated from the drains used to irrigate them.
Indeed, every restaurant in Accra serves vegetables…they’re usually prepared into nice salad with thick tomato ketchup or white salad cream.
In fact, like people anywhere in the world, Ghanaians love vegetables.
But some of them have concerns. Most of the fresh vegetables produced in Accra are grown along the major drains in the city and irrigated with untreated wastewater from these drains.
It includes industrial and medical waste.
In fact a recent research suggests more than forty percent of vegetables sold on the market are contaminate and this is traced to the source of water used to grow them.
Everyone including the matrons at the restaurants and hotels to which the farmers supply their wares, knows about the problem. But it appears they have no choice but to buy the vegetables.
Rose Papoe, the owner of a local restaurant in Accra says although she’s aware the vegetables are not grown with hygienic water she’ll continue to buy them because she has clients to serve.
To make the vegetables safer for consumption, she washes them in salt water. This must kill all germs in the vegetables.
But some of the farms are worried because consumption appears to be reducing in recent times because a lot of awareness is not being created about the possible contamination of their vegetables.
There are some consumers who are also not perturbed about this.
Well, residents of Accra still have a choice of avoiding vegetables and a potential source of nutrients.
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