African Governments asked to strengthen Agricultural systems

In an interview on the sidelines of the Continental Training on the Malabo Declaration Biennial Review Reporting Tools workshop in Accra, Ghana, Dr. Amare the Program Manager of the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA) urged African governments to ensure there are sufficient surveillance measures by countries to help protect the public from consuming food that could be contaminated with the aflatoxin.

Contamination in groundnuts occurs heterogeneously through the produce, “it is not homogeneous like other farm produce hence the need to select those that appear shriveled or showing signs of contamination to prevent them from contaminating the rest of the produce,” says Dr. Amare.

Dr. Amare says while aflatoxin contamination is a complex issue, governments could work towards strengthening systems and making technology available to farmers and processors to help prevent contamination before it happens.

Through contracting farmers, he notes, commercial entities could help the farmers employ agronomy practices that help to prevent contamination at farm level and also through the value chain.

“The best way to go about the issue is by protecting the groundnuts from conditions that make it possible for the produce to get contaminated,” he says and adds, “in one company rejection levels have dropped from 50% to 4% which is a major success that requires that other entities can learn from this one entity as a best practice.”

Aflatoxin is known to cause death once it is ingested by both humans and animals. It is a toxin known to cause liver cancer among those that feed on food contaminated with the toxin.  The Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA) is a collaboration that aims to protect crops, livestock, and people from the effects of aflatoxin.

This comes after Kenya flagged down peanut butter that was suspected to have been contaminated with the life threatening toxin from shops.