Kenyan maize farmers may soon find their labour more rewarding following reports that experts have found a way of preventing aflatoxin contamination. Scientists in the United States say they had identified a local non-toxic form of fungus that is responsible for aflatoxin that could be biologically used to control maize contamination.
Now they are seeking government support to apply the technology locally. Dr Peter Cotty of the Agriculture Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture and Dr Bandyopadhyay’s could come as a godsend for millions of Kenyan farmers whose produce has been contaminated by the lethal toxin.
In large parts of Eastern and Coast provinces, hundreds of thousands of bags of maize are to be bought at low prices by the government and destroyed because of the contamination. What had promised to be a bumper harvest and good income for farmers has turned into a nightmare as the government offers Sh1,500 per 90-kilogramme bag instead of Sh2,300 for good maize.
According to Dr Bandyopadhyay, the remedy is applied in the form of a pesticide. A single application of the chemical two-to-three weeks before maize flowering is sufficient to prevent aflatoxin contamination during and after harvest. He said the technology’s ability to continue working even when the grain was in storage ensured the safety of maize from aflatoxin contamination. “These atoxigenic strains are also carried in the grains from the field to the stores.
So, even if the grains are not stored properly or get wet during or after harvest, as is happening this year, they continue to prevent aflatoxin contamination during the post-harvest period,” Dr Bandyopadhyay said. Aflatoxin is a silent killer that causes liver cancer and suppresses the immune system. It also retards growth and development in children.
People exposed to very high aflatoxin concentrations experience liver failure and rapid death. From 2004 to 2006, nearly 200 Kenyans have died after consuming contaminated maize. Kenya is one of the world’s hotspots for aflatoxin.
Research performed by one of Dr Cotty’s graduate students, Claudia Probst, has shown that in areas where aflatoxin is a persistent and a serious problem, there is a very high occurrence of one of the most toxic strains of A. flavus in the world, the S. strain.
According to Dr Cotty, the S. strain produces very high levels of aflatoxins and dominates in regions where contamination is very high, including some areas of the US. In Africa, the S. strain has been only found to be dominant in the severely affected regions of Kenya. In the US, bio-control with atoxigenics has successfully reduced its contamination.
In Nigeria, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA, has obtained provisional registration of the technology under the name Alfasafe, a mixture of four atoxigenic strains of Nigerian origin. According to scientists, in 2009, maize farmers in Nigeria were able to reduce aflatoxin contamination by 80 per cent by broadcasting 10 kilogrammes of Aflasafe per hectare, 2-3 weeks before maize flowering.
The international experts claimed research had shown that Aflasafe treatments provide long-term benefits and that it may not need to be applied every year. They are now calling upon the government and the private sector in Kenya to partner with them and make this bio-control option and other management practices available to the farmers to save their much-needed harvests from future aflatoxin contamination.
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