Parliament has called for better ways of hygienically preserving food produced locally to ensure food security and good health. Members were unanimous in their views during their contributions to a statement presented by Mrs Cecilia Gyan Amoah, MP for Asutifi South, on food preservation and hygiene.

Mrs Amoah said Ghana's tropical climate with its high temperatures and humidity caused accelerated deterioration of fresh food that significantly increased post harvest losses leading to the shortage of food items during the lean seasons.

She said even though traditional methods of food preservation which included sun drying, smoking, salting and fermentation were cheap and easy to undertake, a number of health hazards were associated with these preservation techniques.

The MP said for example, sun drying involved spreading the produce on flat stones, leaves or the bare soil often along roadsides and roof-tops exposing the food to wind borne dirt, fowl and goat excreta, cockroaches, rodents and worms, apart from the risk of spoilage due to sudden rainfall.

Mrs Amoah said, "Drying maize, rice, palm fruit fibre, gari and other produce on the streets often get mixed up with stones resulting in the discomfort of eating these items with stones in them. Besides the negative health implications of the current attitude towards food preservation, these practices also display a complete disregard to the consumer", adding that this would prove extremely detrimental to the marketability of Ghanaian produce internationally.

Mrs Amoah suggested simple methods for tackling the problems associated with food preservation by discouraging roadside drying, the raising of platforms as well as introducing exclusive drying yards to reduce exposure to contamination from vehicles, human beings and animals.

She also called for mass education on food preservation with emphasis on cleanliness and hygiene and some degree of regulation from the relevant regulatory bodies.