Busani Bafana of the Inter Press Service writer based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe recently posted a good piece on the costs of aflatoxin – both to health and business –in sub-Saharan Africa.
Several other news outlets either ran the IPS article or wrote a similar one of their own after the piece posted on Nov. 20.
Bafana’s sources hit on the main problem:
“Many smallholder farmers fail to prevent contamination during production and storage of their crops because they lack cost-effective ways to determine the poisons,” Bafana reported.
And on the cost: “Sub-Saharan Africa is annually losing more than $450 million in trade revenue of major staples, particularly maize and groundnuts, as a result of contamination from aflatoxins, researchers told IPS. The health bill as a result of people unknowingly eating contaminated food runs into millions of dollars in a region with over burdened health facilities.”
Nearly all of the peanut butter brands sampled in Zambian supermarkets and local markets from 2012 to 2014 contained unsafe levels of aflatoxins at more than 20ppb, Bafana reported. Less than 30 per cent of milled groundnut flour was within the 4 ppb set by the EU as safe.
Check out the complete article here.