The Bolgatanga Municipal Director of Agriculture, Lantana Osman, has raised alarm over the increasing threat of land degradation and plastic pollution in the municipality, particularly in the Sherigu Traditional Area, where almost half of the municipality’s agricultural land is located.
Speaking during the commemoration of this year’s World Environment Day organized by the Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Organization (ADDRO) at Sherigu Community Day Senior High School, she called for urgent community action to preserve agricultural land and combat the growing plastic menace.
According to Madam Osman, Bolgatanga Municipality boasts an estimated 42,375 hectares of agricultural land, but about 20 percent of this is already degraded. “Almost 50 percent of our agric lands are located right here in the Sherigu traditional area,” she revealed. “Unfortunately, this same land is under pressure from illegal waste dumping, deforestation, and plastic pollution.”
She pointed to the alarming increase in the use of white plastic sheets, known locally as “apapaye,”, especially among women who use them in households and markets. These plastics, she said, are contributing to the death of livestock. “Have you ever slaughtered your goat and found poly bags in their stomachs? That’s what is happening,” she lamented.
The World Environment Day event, themed “Ending Plastic Pollution,” was designed to raise awareness about environmental protection and promote sustainable practices among community members. Ms. Osman noted that plastic waste, much of which is non-biodegradable, was affecting soil health and crop yields. “The rain comes and buries the plastics under the soil. You think you are applying fertilizer, but it’s lying on plastic sheets. That reduces plant growth and affects your harvest,” she said.
She also decried the poor management of waste at the Sherigu landfill, located within the community, warning that the community risks experiencing a surge in diseases such as malaria and typhoid if immediate measures are not taken.
Beyond plastic waste, Osman touched on rampant deforestation in Sherigu, an area once known for its dense forests. “Now the forest has been reduced to a thin line,” she noted. “People cut down more than 50 trees that are over 50 years old, yet they struggle to plant even one seedling.”
She urged community members to return to environmentally friendly practices such as using straw baskets for shopping instead of plastic bags and preserving their traditional ways of farming and food handling. “We used to fish in the rivers, which added to our household nutrition. Now, we pollute the same rivers and can’t find fish anymore,” she added.
On food security, the agric director warned that continued land degradation and poor waste management could plunge the area into a food crisis. “This municipality has over 25,000 farmers. If our lands are degraded and yields drop, it affects everyone’s food basket,” she said.
As part of the celebration, ADDRO distributed tree seedlings to community members and led a tree-planting exercise to promote afforestation and restore degraded areas. The day’s activities began with a community procession and ended with a renewed call for environmental stewardship across Sherigu and the wider Bolgatanga Municipality.
A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah|Sherigu
