It brought cheers to farmers across the country – the announcement to make fertilisers available at subsidised prices.

The announcement was first made by the President at the launch of the new agricultural programme, “Planting for Food and Jobs”, at Goaso, in the Brong Ahafo Region, and repeated by the Vice President last month during his tour of the Northern Region.

Farmers cheered but the strange thing is that although chemical use has become so fundamental in Africa, it has long ceased to excite most people in Europe where it originally came from.

These is the belief in Europe that blood does not need vegetables, fruits and roots loaded with chemicals in order to provide healthy living.

Research findings have taught us that the movement of chemical fertilisers from farmlands into water sources, as well as recent crisis in farming, food scares, and increased allergies have led the media, pressure groups, and political thinking in Europe to turn creatively to recycling and the provision of green and organic options.

Most consumers claim they are happier and healthier as a result of eating organic foods.

Reading articles, especially by the Carel Press and books published by Green Books about these concerns, I wonder how African countries, virtually lacking the bare minimum of controls, can be expected to use chemicals comfortably without health hazards.

After so many decades, isn’t it time to re-examine the use of agro-chemicals on African soils?

Is there no need for research to check whether fertilisers have any adverse effect on the soil, water bodies, the atmosphere and on human health?

Plans reported by the mass media on April 20, 2017 to employ 2,000 extension officers under the new agricultural programme are highly commendable. Indeed, the government should forget spending money on expensive chemicals and spend instead on officers who will help farmers to think and enjoy nature.

We need extension officers to promote the farmers’ tendency to be adventurous, enterprising, imaginative, creative and inventive.

Chemical fertilisers are easily accessible to many people. But does it profit us to gain the whole world but lose our farm soils?