IITA leads fight against prevalence of aflatoxin in food

… impact health, trade

By Jimoh Babatunde

Most Nigerians consume crops like maize, groundnut and cassava, but unknown to majority these crops are susceptible to Aflatoxins, which are highly toxic to humans and animals.

Aflatoxin is a poison produced by the ubiquitous fungus Aspergillus flavus that infects various crops in the fields and stores making food and feed unsafe.

According to Scientists, consuming foods containing Aflatoxins can cause death both in Animals and Human. Aflatoxins are estimated to cause about 5 percent to 30 percent of all liver cancers especially in developing countries like Nigeria.

Aflatoxin contamination is pervasive in the food and feed production systems in sub-Saharan Africa leading to unknown but significant social and economic cost with respect to impaired health and productivity of people and animals, increased food spoilage, and inability to market agricultural products internationally.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has carried out lots of research on the effects of Aflotoxin on human health as well as Africa’s food economy. In one of the studies, an association between aflatoxin exposure and stunted growth in children under five years old was shown.

Alejandro Ortega disclosed recently that in Togo and Benin that large numbers of children may be affected by aflatoxin- associated stunting. This means that aflatoxins could be contributing to a significant public health burden in developing countries.

“Child exposed to aflatoxins contaminated food have 28% reduced growth rate in comparison to other children.”

How do aflatoxins affect Africa’s food economy?

It has also been established that Aflatoxins contribute to nutritional and economic losses in major commodities including groundnuts, maize, sorghum, cassava, yam chips, cotton seeds, coffee, cocoa, copra and oils.

Speaking recently in Lagos at Year 3 innovation platform and market linkages workshop put together by IITA for maize-producing organizations and farmers, involved in the AgResults Aflasafe™ project, Mrs. Stella Denloye said Aflatoxin contamination contributes to pre and post harvest losses in many crops which can directly reduce availability of food , just as it also prevents commodities from meeting international, regional and local regulations, and standards governing agricultural trade and food safety.

“Contaminated food is effectively lost as it must be destroyed because alternative uses are not readily available. Small-scale farmers are said to be hard hit , since contaminated crops do not meet food safety standards, aflatoxin contamination undermines local purchase programmes by development partners and access to other markets.

“It also hinders investments in seeds, tools and fertilizers, intended to boost agricultural development and trade.”

Also speaking on the effect of aflatoxin on poultry business, Dr. Victor Oduguwa, said when you feed chicken with toxin infested maize it really stresses them, “because what you are trying to achieve when you give them food is convert that food to egg in our case. But when all the internal organ are stressed then you disturb the conversion ability of that food into eggs , so the conversion can not happen.

“The chicken is sick, they start coughing blood, plus our environment where we have a little bit of temperature , you get all the stresses and this is just bad for the business.

“So what do we do, we spend a bit more money by buying toxin binder to try and inhibit the effect of this toxin on the chicken.”

Dr. Victor Oduguwa added “I can not over emphasis the impact this has on our business, many of the chicken die because of the feed we give to them and what you give to them to reduce the stress, but no amount of toxin binder we give them can remove the poisonous effect on their system , so the mortality rate increased. Just as your production of egg will reduced and it cost farmers more.”

Denloye in her presentation on Aflatoxin and challenges to doing business in Nigeria while calling for awareness on the parts of farmers and consumers, said there is need for organise system to detect potential food contamination as research based intervention.

It was gathered that visual inspection cannot provide a good estimate of aflatoxins since clean-looking grains are often contaminated by aflatoxins. Chemical analysis of crop products is the most reliable way to determine the level of aflatoxins in food and feeds.

ON PREVENTION

Dr. Debo Akande, the Nigeria leader of the AgResults pilot , a multi-donor initiative aimed at boosting global agriculture and food security through private sector-led innovations, speaking at the workshop in Lagos noted that in diversifying into agriculture that there is need not only to look at the quantity of food produced but the quality also, “so, it is important to take into consideration the health of the people.”

Food quality and safety issues resulting from aflatoxin contamination has presented a significant obstacle to programs designed to improve nutrition and agricultural production while linking small farmers to markets.

To link small farmers to markets, and to improve food production and quality, it’s clear that unless aflatoxin levels in crops and livestock are effectively managed, agricultural development efforts to achieve greater food security and improve health will be undermined.

Speaking on Increasing Production and Quality of maize through AgResults Aflasafe, Dr. Akande said the workshop is to facilitate a better understanding of aflatoxin issues and market challenges on sources of supply and demand of aflatoxin safe maize, creating and enhancing business relationships between aflasafe farmers and end-users of maize.

He noted that Aflasafe is a natural bio-control product developed by IITA and partners to help farmers manage aflatoxin contamination on cereal and grain products in the field and in the store.

“This event is one of many processes adopted under the AgResults Aflasafe™ project to improve farmers’ access to aflatoxin reduced maize market.

“The project incentivizes aggregators (called Implementers), working with smallholder farmers, through a pull mechanism that pays for results and provides a per-unit award tied to the tonnage of AflasafeTM treated maize Implementers collect from their farmers.”

While noting that the project is private sector driven which is focus on smallholder farmers, Akande the private and public sector enterprises provide inputs and farm services including Aflasafe™ to their constituent farmers at cost.

Akande added that the target for the project is to produce 260,000 tons of maize in 4 years, adding that IITA is looking for every opportunity to have the aflosafe seeds in the hands of farmers in Nigeria.

AFLASAFE

Aflasafe™ was developed by IITA in collaboration with Agriculture Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, University of Bonn and University of Ibadan. More than 4200 strains of Aspergillus species from naturally infected maize cobs collected from farmers’ fields and stores in Nigeria were evaluated .

After 6 years of meticulous and painstaking research using several microbiology, plant pathology, molecular biology and toxicology methods, 12 safe and effective atoxigenic strains were identified out of which 4 were further tested for 6 years in experiment stations and farmers’ fields in Nigeria.

Akande disclosed that aflasafe treated maize is safer for poultry farmers in the country.

A member of the Aflasafe team in Nigeria, Alejandro Ortega added that there is increased livestock productivity and profitability due to incorporation of aflatoxin-reduced crops in the feed value chain.
This was confirmed by Dr. Victor Oduguwa, a poultry farmer, who said the aflasafe treated maize had actually made them to realize the effect of the stress and the heat their chicken go through , “ for the first time using aflasafe maize, we discovered it was a combination of the toxin and the heat stress that aggravate this mortality of our chicken because this year we used aflasafe maize, that toxin level went down, we did not have to do more this time around to deal with the heat stress .

“So, definitely this is the right way to go, because it will help the farmer to preserve their livestock better , it will help to give better products and it will give us peace of mind.”

He added that before now buying maize in the open market they get up to 400ppb, the amount of toxin in the maize, as they don’t really know what they are going to get.

“When we ask the suppliers why it is so, they say that is what they can give. You spend more buying maize, but your chicken are dying because you can not give the maize like that as you need to buy more toxin binder so you are loosing more money.”

Elated Debo Akande said “we wanted to demonstrate that it works and you have seen the evidence by the buyers and it makes business sense for the farmers and the company working with them, which are the implementers.

He said the next stage for them is Africa wide commercialization, “where by Aflasafe will be made available outside the project to users of maize and groundnuts close to around ten countries and Nigeria will be a major country where this will be done.

“These implementers that have worked on this project for three years and have now become like experts in the business of aflatoxin and aflasafe will most likely become like a set of distributors that will now ensure this innovation gets to the hands of farmers.”