Farmers to get tips on management of aflatoxins at Harvest Money Expo

KAMPALA - In 2023, health state minister Margaret Muhanga sounded an alarm, saying that on average, the country was receiving between 170-200 liver cancer patient cases per year but between 48 to 56 of these were as a result of exposure to aflatoxins.

What is Aflatoxin?

According to Prof. Achileo Kaaya, a food scientist /technologist from the School of Food Technology Nutrition and Bioengineering at Makerere University Aflatoxins are a group of mycotoxins, in the group of fungal toxins which are found in produce that have been dried and stored.

The most dangerous toxin which is aflatoxin B1 said to be most dangerous is produced by a fungus called Aspergillus flavours, Kaaye explained during an online discussion, organised by CONSENT Uganda, a non-governmental organisation, promoting food safety.

Exhibitors during training at the Harvest Money Expo. (Credit: Eddie Ssejjoba)

The discussion evolved around the topic: The Nexus Between the Aflatoxin Burden in Uganda's Food System & Social-Economic Transformation.

According to Henry Richard Kimera, the team leader at CONSET, the meeting was in response to the President's warning that he would ban the trade of shelled groundnuts in an attempt to reduce the consumption of groundnuts contaminated with aflatoxins, one of the contributors to growing cases of liver cancer.

Kaaya said the President’s direction is a welcome move, adding that groundnuts are candidate crops that are easily attacked by aflatoxins.

He added that the International Agency for Research on Cancer has named aflatoxin as the number one carcinogenic compound, (it has the possibility of causing cancer, especially liver cancer) through the food items that enter the body.

“The mould enters the stored food which isn’t well dried and eats the grains; as they eat, they produce these toxins as waste products. "When you cook or roast foods like groundnuts the toxins which cannot be eliminated because they are chemicals and their melting point is 420 degrees Celsius,” Kaaya said.

He added that this higher melting point is one of the biggest challenges facing most grain-producing countries.

Further studies from scientists have also established that the B1 and B2 type of moulds, which are bluish in colour and in particular B1 are most dangerous. The other dangerous toxin is M1 found in Milk, Meat and Eggs and when the liver fails to manage these, the result is cancer.

Food items prone to moulds that turn into aflatoxins

Kaaya explained further that food and feed items prone to toxins include maize, sorghum, millet, cassava chips, groundnuts, tree nuts, and silver fish because they are usually dried on the ground. Other food items that can be attacked by aflatoxins include milk, meat and eggs.

For the toxins to get into the milk or meat or eggs, the cow or chicken must have eaten contaminated feeds like the cotton seed cake, maize, silverfish, soybean and other raw materials used in the production of animal feeds.

Other effects of aflatoxins are seen in the health sector.

Kaaya added that aflatoxins are linked to acute toxicity. “If you eat food with high levels of aflatoxins you can die immediately like what happened in Kenya in 2004 and Tanzania in 2016 and earlier on in Uganda in the 1970s when a young boy ate cassava with high levels of aflatoxins and died,” he said.

In terms of grain rejections due to the presence of aflatoxins, Kaaya said till last year, Uganda has recorded rejections of her grains by neighbouring countries like Kenya until last year,  while $ 2 million worth of grains was rejected by the government of S.Sudan.

The other challenges of chronic toxicity include liver cancer and reduction in the immune system; when aflatoxins are in the body, they make it hard for the body to bind major nutrients like proteins and minerals like zinc and iron, leading to a weekend immunity and for children stunting and poor growth.

What is being done?

To avert the challenge, Kaaya said that there are efforts which started in 2014 when the African Union Funded Patternship for aflatoxins control in Africa initiated studies in Uganda up to 2018 to find out the status of aflatoxins, leading to the development of aflatoxin action plan to manage the challenge.

Since then, the non-government efforts have joined campaigns with regular awareness campaigns on the dangers, causes and management of aflatoxins.

Agnes Kirabo the executive director of Food Rights Alliance (FRA) welcomed the President's warning adding they will increase awareness creation on the dangers of aflatoxins, with the support of the president.

“When we see the fountain of honour weighing in, and when he says he has numerous reports, we shall soldier on because we now have a commander taking the lead,” she said.

She, however, called for more vigilance in all sectors of the public including the education sector to ensure that food served to students is safe and stored in storage facilities recommended by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards among other quality check agencies.

Any solutions at the Harvest Money Expo

Because the aflatoxin story is broad and of great concern to the food and economic security of the country, Vision Group has put together a team of experts who will be sharing tips for managing and controlling the aflatoxins at the Harvest Money Expo that kicked off today the 14th to the 16th of February at Namboole Stadium.

Some of the solutions will be shared by Venkatesh Kumar the CEO of Mandela Group of companies who are also large grain and produce buyers.

Organised by Vision Group, the expo will run under the theme Farming as a business, Value addition and Cooperatives, is supported by the Netherland Embassy in Uganda, Engineering Solutions, Uganda Development Cooperation, Bella wine, Tunga Nutrition, Abi initiative, Ministry of Agriculture among others.