Mr Ogum Tetteh, Business Technical Advisor of the Private Sector Malaria Prevention (PSMP) Project of John Hopkins Centre for Communication Programme, who made the call, said it was time stakeholders in agriculture came together to discuss innovative approaches to reduce the burden of malaria on farmers and agribusinesses.

He was speaking at a workshop organized by PSMP in collaboration with the Ashanti Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), for stakeholders in agriculture. It was to discuss the issue of malaria in agricultural production and find solutions to the effects of malaria on farmers’ productivity and the agribusiness sector as a whole.

It was attended by officials from MOFA, Department of Cooperatives, General Agricultural Workers Union, Ghana Health Service, farmer organizations, agribusiness companies and the media, with funding from the Department For International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom (UK).   

Mr Tetteh said malaria had the potential to strike farming communities at critical planting, weeding and harvesting times, making it impossible for farmers to tend their farms, resulting in hunger and creating excruciating poverty in those communities.

“People in malaria endemic regions could experience malaria episodes up to five times a year, and the time lost tending crops during critical agricultural periods in the agricultural cycle meant not just loss of income, but also inability to feed themselves and families,” he explained.

According to him, research had shown that in some countries, malaria-afflicted smallholders lose up to 22 days work to the illness and harvest only 40 per cent of their crops. The cost of malaria to agribusinesses in Ghana in 2016, he said, was GH ¢2,757,434.00.

Eighty per cent of this amount was spent on treatment for employees in that sector.

Mr. Tetteh pointed out that some agricultural practices such as damming rivers and water accumulation could predispose farmers and their families to malaria, cautioning that, as the government strived to increase agricultural productivity, a more rigorous approach to malaria prevention was required.

The PSMP, he said had introduced the Malaria Safe Initiative that guided businesses to implement malaria prevention initiatives for employees and their dependents. Malaria Safe actions that agribusinesses companies could take to reduce the incidence and burden could be through protection, education, visibility and championing.