The West Mamprusi District Assembly has directed that nobody should use agro chemicals within the communities because it has proved to be harmful to human life and domestic animals.
The chemicals, used to spray weeds in gardens and farms has caused the deaths of some domestic animals as they drunk water that got polluted by the chemicals and fed on the sprayed grass.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Walewale on Wednesday, Mr Zakaria Sulley Abudu, District Chief Executive, said the assembly gave the directive because of complaints of the lost of animals and poultry that drunk water or ate polluted weeds.
He said because of the rains, the chemicals got washed into water bodies from which animals drunk while humans also suffered when they drank from streams and wells that absorbed the chemicals.
Mr Abudu said the chemicals were injurious to life and asked people who had gardens and small farms near human settlements, to rather use manual labour to weed instead of using the weedicides.
He said the chemicals could even affect fishes and crocodiles in the streams and rivers, destroy organic life and kill insects that were needed for pollination of crops.
Mr Abudu said the people who used the chemicals did not wear protective clothing but breathed it in while they sprayed and that could be dangerous for their health.
He said the assembly was collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency to educate the people to ensure that the chemical was used properly.
The assembly had earlier sent out letters to various churches and mosques explaining the dangerous effects of the chemicals and appealed to the people to stop using them around human settlements.
The chemicals, used to destroy weeds are imported from neighbouring countries and are abundant in the north. They are much cheaper than human labour so many farmers preferred it to paying farmhands to weed.