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38. Safer peri-urban vegetable production

Full Title:

Safeguarding Public Health Concerns, Livelihoods and Productivity in Wastewater Irrigated Urban and Peri-Urban Vegetable Farming in Ghana

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This project takes a holistic approach to improve land and water productivity, minimize public- heath risks and safeguard livelihoods in irrigated urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA). It builds on ongoing research projects and responds to needs expressed by local authorities and farmers. The contributions of UPA to urban food security, poverty alleviation, women empowerment and balanced diets have been documented but still UPA does not receive appropriate public support. The reason—not only in Ghana—is the common use of polluted water or wastewater for irrigation, which threatens public health. Most irrigation water sources are heavily polluted with untreated urban wastewater and due to high costs involved wastewater treatment is no economic option for local authorities. Health implications relate mostly to pathogens while heavy metal levels are low. Banning polluted water use has failed as this threatens livelihoods of UPA dependants and is not practical as long as alternative water sources are lacking. This has now ended up as a complex situation compounded by biophysical, technical, socioeconomic and institutional elements that need an innovative multidisciplinary and integrated approach; hence this project. Such a project will have to go beyond a descriptive situation analysis and look for solutions.

The project’s main goal is to develop integrated and user-oriented strategies to balance land and water productivity and produce safety in UPA to safeguard public health, sustain UPA-related livelihoods and urban food supplies. To achieve this, the current land and water-use practices will be assessed and pollution and contamination levels and sources (including post-harvest) analyzed in order to formulate innovative strategies for health-risk reduction. These can take place on-farm (irrigation techniques, pump filters, simple on-site treatment), in markets (vegetable “refreshing”) or at the household level. In each case, the levels of risk reduction will be quantified. Related awareness-raising will be achieved through active stakeholder involvement in the project and the development of training modules for various stakeholder groups.

Main research methods will include literature review, crop and water analysis, farm surveys using participatory methods, on-farm research and field trials as well as the use of GIS tools. The project will improve productivity in UPA ensuring urban food security and safeguarding livelihoods of many urbanites, especially farmers and produce sellers. In addition, it will enhance produce safety, i.e., vegetables which of now are highly contaminated, which will lead to improved health and reduced water-related diseases.

The project will involve students and researchers from various institutions leading to capacity building and more collaboration even for future activities. Finally, the developed guidelines will help in decision support for all stakeholders, more especially local authorities, while the tested technologies will be of value for any other wastewater project in developing countries including other CP basins. Five urban centers in and around the Volta basin have been chosen for this study. The 3-year project contributes to different basin priorities and to CP theme four. The total budget requested from the CP is US$456,000. Matching funds of about US$166,000 would be available.