Starting Saturday, June 1, 2019, Ghana will not be exporting any more of leafy vegetables. According to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the move to place a ban on the exportation of Capsicum, Solanum, luffa and all other leafy vegetables to the international market has become necessary following “the high level of local interceptions at the exit points; the alarming rate of external notifications, and the new EU directives to all countries to re-provide dossiers to the EU on the management of harmful organisms on some of the above vegetables”.

The statement further explained Ghana recently came out of a ban on vegetable exports imposed by the European unio, “and, as such, we are still on the red list and being monitored closely”.

The communique stated: “We are only five months into the second year, the number of notifications is increasing, and if we are not careful, the European unio will ban Ghana. Internal interceptions by our officers amounted to 162 while external notifications were 53 due to harmful organisms. From the beginning of this year to date (23/05/2019), internal interceptions by our officers has risen to 120 and 20 for external notifications.”

According to the statement signed by the Director of the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate, the ministry wants to put in place measures that will ensure no red flag will be raised by the EU when the country exports leafy vegetables.