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A university lecturer has warned that the country�s cocoa production is in danger and called for an alternative for the mass spraying exercise. Prof. Peter Kwapong, who lectures at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Cape Coast, said the cocoa mass spraying exercise was a negative practice that threatened the lives of pollinators and, by extension, the ultimate yields of the cocoa industry. Prof. Kwapong, who is the national co-ordinator of the Global Pollination Project � Ghana, said of even greater concern was the threat on general food production and food security as farmers continue to kill pollinators with insecticides, weedicides and pesticides as opposed to other traditional and natural ways of controlling pests on the farmlands. He said this at the second workshop for journalists from the Upper East, Upper West, Northern, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions on the role of pollinators in food security worldwide. Pollinators Prof. Kwapong said insecticides and pesticides used in the mass spraying exercise killed pollinators. He said while pests are a bother to crops, including cocoa plants, there were many natural ways of controlling pests other than �killing both the pests and the agents of production�. At a time when the mass spraying exercise has been touted as a mechanism that has increased cocoa yield in the country lately, Prof. Kwapong�s assertion could touch the raw nerves of politicians and policy makers in a debate that affects a crop which for many years, has remained the country�s chief foreign exchange earner. Ghana is one of seven countries of the world participating in the Global Pollination Project. The other countries are Brazil, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, India and South Africa. The five-year Ghana project, which started in 2009, focused on cocoa at Bobiri in Ashanti, mango at Dodowa in the Greater Accra and garden egg at Mankessim in Central Region. The project, which is funded by the Global Environment Facility, United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organisation among others, advocates pollinator conservation as a critical factor to food production and food security. Potential drop in yield According to Prof. Kwapong, Ghana�s cocoa yield could drop by up to 90 per cent of the current production level without its main pollinator, midges, while mango yield could drop between 40 and 90 per cent without its pollinators, and called for a sharp change in the unbridled use of chemicals to spray farms and other unfriendly farming practices.