Four-year project on food safety ends this year
A four-year project being undertaken by Safe Water for Food (SaWaFo), a non-profit organisation in Denmark, in partnership with three institutions in Ghana and Tanzania, to identify food safety and the health hazards associated with the use of low quality water for food production is to end this month.
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The three-partner institutions that are undertaking the project which began in January 2012 and is being funded by the Danish Government at a cost of 1.5 million euros are the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Tanzania, and the University of Copenhagen (KU), Denmark.
At an annual project assessment workshop held at Ejisu in the Ashanti Region, the Project Leader, Dr Anders Permin, said the project sought to identify food safety matters arising from the use of low quality water on food plants.
He added that the project sought to identify the health hazards by using low quality water for food production by farmers in water scarce peri-urban centres in Ghana and Tanzania.
Research-based tools
Dr Permin said it was necessary to develop and apply research-based tools to manage the risks in using low quality water for food production.
For the above reasons, he said, there was the need for capacity building and management of the project, identifying and characterising chemical and microbial contaminants in water, soil and crops in selected sites where there were low quality water reuse systems.
Studying farmers and consumers’ exposure to low quality water and the foods produced, as well as their perception of associated benefits and risks, including developed risk assessment models based on health hazards and exposure scenarios, were some important proponents Dr Permin mentioned.
Producing safe food
The Dean of Graduate Studies of the KNUST, Prof. Robert Abaidoo, who is also the Leader of the Project in Ghana, said there was the need to have in place Waste Stabilisation Ponds to enhance treatment of low quality water.
He said treated low quality water could be used to produce food free of chemicals, noting that some farmers were using low quality water irrespective of known of health hazards which called for the concern of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other related bodies.
He, however, expressed hope that the project would address the bottlenecks associated with low quality water in food production in both Ghana and Tanzania.
A Lecturer of Microbiology at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (FPPS) at the KNUST, Prof. Christian Agyare, called for a continuous collaboration among the three institutions to adopt the best practices in the area of safe food production.
There were power point presentations from participants, comprising policy makers, lecturers and PhD candidates, who had a bearing on the need for treatment of low quality water for food production in sub-Saharan Africa.