Lagos, Feb. 19, 2026 (NAN) Some agriculture experts have warned local farmers against the misuse of agrochemicals in the cultivation of crops.
The farmers raised alarm of the misuse of agrochemicals in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.
A strategic agriculture communication expert, Dr Olawale Ismail, explained that agrochemicals cannot be completely boycotted in crop cultivation, restraints must be applied to its usage.
“As regards the issue of agrochemical use, I don’t think we can absolutely stop it. It is not possible to absolutely stop it because of the development of these agrochemicals.
“So, this has been the practice, even as far as in the 70s growing up, we saw cocoa farmers buy Gamelin 20 and some other chemicals to spread on cocoa, coffee and kola nut for pest eradication and prevention.
“But recently the use of agrochemicals has included the vegetables and some other staple food crops which is not a problem.
“A major problem of misuse is the over application of these agrochemicals on crops indiscriminately without measurements.
“There are rules, there are procedures for applying these chemicals. Farmers sometimes apply too much, it’s not that they don’t have this education, they are aware,” Ismail said.
He urged the farmers to ensure strict adherence to technical measurement and safety rules.
“An average Nigerian farmer, if you ask him, knows about one or two chemicals, he will tell you the names of these chemicals, he will even tell you the years he has been using them.
“But adherence to technical measurement and safety rules, that is where the problem is. And it is not that they have not been exposed to these safety rules, especially the safe application of these chemicals on even the crops themselves.
“There is this kind of in-built understanding that the more chemicals you the more the yield.
“Most farmers don’t know that using agrochemicals wrongly has its own hazard, but there is a very tiny line between profit-making and the fear of God.
“This is very pathetic and it’s going to take a long time before any advocacy can stop this behaviour, because people are afraid of survival, people want to survive by all means, they commit what we call agro-processing fraud.
“It is fraudulent on the part of farmers who apply chemicals indiscriminately, not bothering about the health implication, even on themselves and on the consumers, it’s a self-inflicted understanding,” the expert said.
On his part, Mr Omotunde Banjoko, an agriculture analyst and farmer, said farmers could adopt organic farming systems as against the chemical-induced farming systems.
“To boycott the use of agrochemicals, we will have to start adopting what is called organic mode of agriculture, where we use biological means to control pests, biological means to fertilise the crops, and then the best practice in agriculture generally.
“So, it’s possible, though it might not be 100 per cent in most cases, because you might still need to maybe use one or two things that are non-natural, but at least it can be greatly reduced.
“However, even in most markets, both local, international markets, products of organic grade are always more expensive than the inorganic, so we must also be ready for the price variation.
“To educate farmers, it means we have to get more extension agents to go to the farms, the rural community and empower the extension agents with the right information, and give them the tools to sensitise farmers against agrochemical misuse,” Banjoko said. (NAN)
