Authors:
HOUNSOU B. Mathieu
, DOVONOU E. Flavien
, AHAMIDE Bernard
, PAMELA T. Y. Esdrace
and MAMA
Daouda ,Benin |
Abstract:
The market gardening is an activity that develops more and more through Benin. In the
municipaty of Cotonou, there are several gardening’s perimeters of which the most important ant
the oldest is at Houéyiho where this activity is practiced since more of 40 years. On this site the
quality of water used for the watering is not always clean. That justifies the choice of our training
at the end of my formation. To achieve this objective the participating observations and semistructured interviews guide were conducted with 20 market gardeners of the cooperative DON
DE DIEU. This cooperative is situated in the North zone of the site and regroups 36 men and 4
women market gardeners. Water samples have been analyzed during two periods of measure
(humid season and dry season) for the determination of the physical and chemical and
bacteriological parameters. The results of these analyses show a contamination of water. The
elevated values are observed to the level of the calcium (136,136 mg/l), of the chloride (514,75
mg/l), of ammonium (1,819 mg/l), of the total iron (1,98 mg/l), of fluoride (1,61 mg/l), of the
nitrate (119,61 mg/l) and by pathogenic germs as the total coliforms (842 unites/ml), the fecal
coliforms (414 unites/ml) and the fecal streptococci (289 unites/ml). This toxicity of water is due
to the Hydro geographicallocation of the site and the ecological characteristics of the city of
Cotonouand to the agricultural input contributions for fertilizing the soil. It causes parasitic,
respiratory, digestive, hematological, enzymatic unrests, dermatologiques and others diseases at
the market gardeners because of their contacts with water and for the consumers of these
vegetables |
