Use Of Untreated Human, Animal Waste As Fertiliser Dangerous – Leader

A university lecturer, Professor Mba Okoronkwo, has stated that the use of untreated human and animal waste as fertiliser is hazardous to farm workers and consumers of edible crops.

Professor Okoronkwo disclosed this in a lecture he delivered at the maiden  inaugural lecture on “Public Health Significance of Human and Animal Waste Utilisation in Agriculture” at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Lagos recently.

Okoronkwo who is a professor of Environmental Parasitology said that research has shown that the use of untreated human and animal waste as fertilisers was a risk, especially to farm workers and to waste handlers as well as consumers of some edible crops.

“The existing practice in the utilisation of wastes as a resource, poses health hazards. The excreted parasite eggs in the soil, on crops, in water and sludge, all pose potential danger to health” he emphasised.

The university don noted that vegetables were often contaminated with human intestinal nematode eggs where night soil or water re-use was practiced adding that both the crop consumers and agricultural workers have been identified as being at high risk from waste transmitted infection.

According to him, in Nigeria, the dry season migration farmers who use human and animal wastes for vegetable and salad crops production are usually infected by diseases such as hook warm, ascaris, trichuris, stronyloides and other parasites.

He maintained that the risk of these infections and others are particularly great in areas where farmers customarily work barefoot because the broken skin of their feet is readily penetrated by hookworm larva.

Professor Okonkwo however said human and animal waste if treated could effectively be used as fertilisers thereby reducing the huge sum budgeted on chemical fertilisers to enhance agriculture.

He said the nation’s population is large enough to produce human waste for the purpose of agriculture which could effectively check unemployment, hunger and poverty.

To this end, he urged government to introduce human and animal waste utilisation schemes in the country adding that this has become imperative in view of high cost of chemical fertilisers and the high demand for vegetable as well as salad crops.