ABSTRACT
Keywords: insecticide; pest control; pesticides; pest management; vegetables Introduction Urban food needs in cities and towns in Ghana are growing, and increasingly vegetables are grown in urban and peri-urban areas to meet the demand. However, traditional vegetable farming systems (i.e. without any chemical input) are incapable of meeting this challenging demand. For instance, pests and diseases, which pose big problems in vegetable production, require intensive pest management to control them. Chemical pesticide use is a common practice to control pests and diseases in vegetable cultivation in Ghana. However, besides their beneficial effects, pesticides are accepted as having potential environmental and public health impacts as well. If improperly used, pesticides can cause direct human poisoning, accumulate as residues in food and the environment or lead to the development of resistant strains of pests. These problems can arise from misuse of the pesticides or over-reliance on them, particularly if the users are not aware of these potential problems. In Ghana there are already some levels of contamination of pesticides in water, sediment, crops and human fluids in areas of highly intensive vegetable production (Ntow, 2001). There also exist species of aphids, which have developed resistance to some insecticides, and there are probably other pests resistant to other pesticides, which are as yet undetected.
