Making food safe: Two projects to combat mycotoxin contamination in Tanzania launched

Project partners pose for a group photo at a meeting to
launch and plan for the implementation of two projects to
control mycotoxin contamination in Tanzania 

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and its partners recently launched two new research projects in Tanzania aimed at understanding the extent of mycotoxin contamination and developing a comprehensive and lasting solution for reducing contamination to improve the health and livelihoods of millions of families in the country and reduce loss of income. 

Mycotoxins are poisonous chemicals secreted by naturally occurring fungi which colonize key staple crops while in the fields and during storage. In high concentrations, they make them unfit for human and livestock consumption and for trade. The most common are aflatoxins and fumonisins which have been shown to cause cancer and stunt growth of children.

They are a great constraint to improving the health and wellbeing of people in Africa where testing contamination of agricultural crops is generally not routinely carried out unless it is intended for export. As a result, millions of people living in Africa are chronically exposed to aflatoxins and fumonisins through their diets. 

Preliminary studies by the Tanzania Food and Drugs Administration (TFDA) have documented levels of aflatoxins and fumonisins in maize – the country’s number one staple food- that are way above the recommended maximum limits.

The first project, a six-month research funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Food the Future (FtF) initiative, will establish the extent and spread of mycotoxin contamination of maize and cassava at the homestead and in the markets in Dodoma and Manyara.

The second initiative seeks to introduce a safe and natural technology developed by the United States Department for Agriculture – Agricultural Research Services (USDA-ARS) and IITA that can effectively reduce aflatoxin contamination of maize and groundnuts in the field and during storage.

Aflatoxin is produced by a fungus, Aspergillus flavus. Luckily, not all strains produce the toxin. The innovative biocontrol solution being proposed in the project therefore works by identifying and introducing the naturally occurring non-toxic strains ‘the good fungus’ that can out-compete, displace and drastically reduce the population of their poisonous cousins ‘the bad fungus’. 

It has been successfully piloted in Nigeria under the name Aflasafe where it has been shown to reduce contamination by 99%. Country specific biocontrol products are also being developed for Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya and Zambia.

This project therefore aims at extending the technology to Tanzania. Four non-toxic strains of the fungus that are most effective in displacing the toxic strains in the country will be identified and formulated into a biocontrol product. Its effectiveness in reducing aflatoxin contamination will then be evaluated under farmers’ field conditions.  If it is found to be effective, it will then be submitted to the Tropical Pesticide Research Institute (TPRI) for registration as a biopesticide for aflatoxin reduction.

The development of the biocontrol technology for Tanzania is funded by Meridian Institute on behalf of the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA) which was created at the recommendations of the 7^th Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) partnership platform where the urgent need to control mycotoxin contamination was emphasized. 

The two projects were launched at a two-day meeting from 18 – 19 April in Dar es Salaam organized by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) that brought together all the partners to plan for their implementation. 

Project partners: MAFC, IITA, Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Tanzania Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) and Tropical Pests Research Institute (TPRI).

Farmers in Africa should switch to biopesticides - SciDev.Net

Farmers in Africa should switch to biopesticides - SciDev.Net

Biopesticides are better and safer than chemical pesticides — policymakers must do more to promote them, says insect ecologistManuele Tamò.

Agriculture is, and will remain for years to come, the main driver of economic development in Africa. Vegetables such as cowpea in West Africa and the common bean in East Africa are an important source of cash and nutrition.

Vegetable and horticultural crops will soon become more important due to increasing urbanisation. But they are plagued by insect pests and diseases that can reduce yields by up to 80 per cent.

Farmers often resort to using chemical pesticide sprays to mitigate the problem. But pesticides are usually applied without taking basic safety precautions such as protecting oneself against the spray mist, or using the correct dosage and intervals between applications.

The problem is compounded by aggressive selling strategies, where retailers target barely literate growers to market toxic pesticides of dubious quality that are sometimes inappropriate — for example destined for use on cotton, not vegetables.

As a result pesticides can pose risks to the health of consumers, theenvironment, and producers. They include acute and chronic side effects including the development of skin and neurological disorders. And indiscriminate use of broad-spectrum insecticides can wipe out pests' natural enemies.

Most growers ignore the natural ways in which pests and disease can be managed. Yet biopesticides — derived from plants as well as microorganisms such as viruses and fungi — have virtually no adverse impact on environmental and human health.

Biopesticide benefits

If prepared and used correctly, biopesticides can be as effective as conventional pesticides. But their killing action is a few days slower, and for farmers accustomed to seeing dead insects an hour after a chemical pesticide has been applied, this can be a critical concern that needs careful explanation.

Training programmes in using biopesticides often provide plots where farmers can compare chemical against biopesticide treatment — an essential tool for education about the effectiveness of biopesticides.

At the end of the cropping season biopesticides protect crops well, providing the same yield as chemical treatments. This has been shown by on-farm trials using the fungus Beauveria bassiana against the diamondback mothPlutella xylostella, a serious cabbage pest.

And the issue of 'slow kill' has now lost some significance because some of the most important agricultural pests have developed resistance to chemical pesticides.

Insects have developed detoxification mechanisms as a result of farmers'overreliance on the same chemical substance. This is particularly well-documented for the diamondback moth; it is now resistant to almost all commercial insecticides.

By contrast, resistance is not a problem with bio-pesticides and there are no signs of it so far. There are two good reasons for this.

First, if living organisms are deployed as biopesticides against pests, the insect-specific fungus or virus can co-evolve to counterattack if the target organism begins to develop resistance.

Second, the plant extracts used in biopesticides contain several different active substances, which are much more difficult for insects to develop resistance to than the one or two active molecules present in most chemical pesticides.

The development of insect resistance to chemical pesticides has been extensively reported, so that even farmers with low literacy are becoming aware that it is better to use a slow killing biopesticide than a chemical insecticide.

Local production

Bio-pesticides can be produced locally with cheap materials and simple equipment, and can generate additional household income by engagingwomen groups or unemployed youth.

Recent examples of the production of a baculovirus to attack the cotton bollworm in India clearly demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.

Community-based production of this virus was initially funded by a grant from the UK's Department for International Development. But it has continued beyond the end of the project, prompting nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), the private sector and even the government to set up production units.

In another example from Benin in West Africa, the international NGO SENS is encouraging community-owned enterprises to help farmers co-invest in producing biopesticides.

One of these start-up enterprises, Phileol-HVC is already marketing a mixture of neem oil and essential oils branded BioPhyto. Designed for spraying horticultural crops, it costs a fraction of the price of synthetic pesticide, yet still provides the desired pest control and environmental benefits.

Scaling up

So why aren't more farmers using bio-pesticides in Africa?

In West Africa, the main reason is the lack of 'off the shelf' availability. Some farmers may know the advantages of using botanical extracts, such as the absence of hazardous side-effects, but are reluctant to invest extra time and labour to produce them by themselves during the peak cropping season.

This is particularly true for male farmers. So engaging women groups or unemployed youth in producing biopesticides, as well as making them affordable and of good quality, helps promote their use.

Research institutions and NGOs need to develop appropriate training materials to support the use, production, and quality control of biopesticides. Because there is no lab accreditation for quality control of biopesticides in Africa, it is currently done by producers in Africa — and they need appropriate training materials.

Similarly, vendors, consumers and policymakers need to be made aware of the higher quality and safety of products treated with bio-pesticides.

Manuele Tamò is the Country Representative of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Benin. He can be contacted at: m.tamo@cgiar.org.

IITA-DR Congo sets up meteorological stations to monitor climate

Stefan Hauser (left) training foresters on the use of meteorological equipment

IITA DR Congo has set up a network of meteorological stations to monitor climate and contribute to research on climate change. As a result, the DR Congo foresters have joined this effort and have purchased a meteorological station in their YOKO forest reserve. IITA Scientist, Stefan Hauser installed the station and trained eight young forestry students in the management of the climate sensors, the programming of the data logger and in handling and analyzing the meteorological data collected by the electronic station.
The Congo basin is the largest contiguous forested area in Africa, and is being threatened by agricultural practices such as logging and slash-and-burn. Climate change as a consequence of deforestation has been documented in African history 3000 years ago. Today the combined effects of greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation may cause stronger and highly undesired effects on agriculture and livelihoods.
The REFORCO project in Kisangani, DR Congo is training foresters to build capacities in protecting forest resources and engendering sustainable forest use. The impact of climate on forests plays a major role in conservation efforts, and IITA's capacity in climate research and monitoring will make a significant contribution in improving the knowledge on forest management under changing climatic conditions.

Stakeholders meet to harmonize protocol on fertilizer analyses

Participants at the workshop on Harmonization of Analytical Methods for Fertilizers in Ibadan

Stakeholders in the agricultural sector converged on the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to harmonize methods for fertilizer analyses. The workshop was organized by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with IITA.
The participants, who were drawn from key institutions including universities and research institutes, deliberated over issues involving the evaluation of the quality of organic and inorganic fertilizers. General laboratory practices that affect the quality of analytical results were also discussed.
Declaring the training forum open, Dr. Stefan Hauser, IITA Systems Agronomist underscored the importance of fertilizers to agricultural productivity.
He said the growing world population demanded agricultural intensification to produce more food without compromising forests, water and land resources.
Fertilizers today may contain undesirable additives that may be harmful to crops and the environment. Hauser emphasized that the issue of examining the quality of fertilizers and their impact on environment was imperative to safeguard ecosystems and biodiversity.
According to him, protocols on fertilizer analyses need to be verified and harmonized for efficient and effective quality control.
He commended the Nigerian government for supporting the training forum, adding that recommendations from the meeting would assist the government in her agricultural transformation action plan.
The meeting was facilitated by Mr. Joseph Uponi and Mrs. Lola Idowu. Lead Presenter, Professor G.O. Adeoye of the University of Ibadan said the workshop came at the right time when the issue of food security is hot on the table.
He urged participants to examine current methods of fertilizer analysis and come up with standard methods for use in Nigerian laboratories.

Work smart not hard - Boosting productivity of small-holder farmers through smarter farming practices

A man and his wife who are small-holder farmers, display their harvest of cassava and banana, two important staples in Sub-Sahara Africa. 

They have small farms, big families and few animals. They grow different types of crops to spread their risks and lack resources to invest in inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides to boost their production. They are at the mercy of the weather; when it rains their harvest is abundant, when it fails, their granaries are empty and they sometimes require food aid.

These are the small-holder farmers in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda that Dr. Piet Van Asten, a system's agronomist with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is trying to work with to ensure they get the most out of what they have. However, they represent a majority of small-holder farmers in Africa.
He works for the Consortium for improving agriculture based livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) which brings together many partners to improve the livelihoods of small-holder farmers. IITA is one of the founding partners.

Too many challenges, where does one start? According to Van Asten, the starting point to improve the productivity of their farming systems is to understand their constraints and to try and identify the one or two issues that if tackled can have great positive impact. He says using tools such as yield gap analysis which looks at the actual productivity of the small holders farmers against the maximum yield they can get in the same circumstances, they have been able to make some headway.

Poor old soils

Dr Piet Van Asten, IITA systems agronomist. 

Van Asten says, focusing primarily on banana, they have established that poor soils are one of the most important constraints to the crop's production by the small-holder farmers in the three countries. Most soils, he said, were old, from old parent rocks and had very little nutrients left.


It therefore follows logically that supporting the farmers to use inputs such as fertilizer was one of the best-bet technologies to increase their production. However, Van Asten cautions, this must be applied based on the actual soil deficiency and include factors such as distance from the farms to market and banana prices.

"Investing in fertilizer does not always lead to profits for the farmers. They can only get value for their money if they live near markets or infrastructure is good and they are able to fetch good prices for their banana. They must also know which nutrients their soils are lacking and which are important for the crops they are growing. They should not follow blanket recommendations as is always the case," he said.

For example he said, they established that potassium, which plays a big role in banana production, was lacking in most soils in the three countries. Yet, the addition of the mineral led to great gains in banana production. Furthermore, Van Asten said, the banana plants that received adequate potassium fared better in times of drought.

He says the impact of adding nutrients to the soils was visible even at the farm level where bananas growing near the homesteads were healthier than those further down.

"This is because the soil closer to the homestead benefited from kitchen wastes as women tend not to walk far to throw away the rubbish. For example, ashes from the fire add calcium to the soils, "he said. "Food wastes add organic matter."

Banana growing near a homestead where the soil is often more fertile from kitchen waste 

.

Which crops give the highest returns?

Most African farmers practice mixed farming. The question therefore arises, with the little limited resources at their disposal, which crop would give them the highest return from fertilizer application and how do they make these decisions?

Van Asten says according to a scooping study they carried out in the three countries, they were surprised to discover that farmers would get the highest return from coffee, cassava and banana and not maize and beans which they gave preference.

"Coffee, banana and even cassava in the long run proved to be better value for money invested in fertilizer in terms of replenishing nutrient extracted in the soils and returns per dollar invested. However, farmers only see the immediate gains in maize and beans.

"Farmers still have to make the decision carefully because for example, once they start fertilizing their coffee it would be best if they can continue. If they stop, the coffee can't maintain its canopy and yields and will show some die-back. This fuels farmers' belief that fertilizer is bad and spoils soils," he said.

Coffee and banana - super mix

Coffee and banana intercrop. 

Other practices that were found to increase yield include inter-cropping banana and coffee. Piet says the farmers got more out of their land by growing the two crops together than having either of them alone. These findings he said are slowing leading to a change of hearts among policy makers who have for a long time preached mono-cropping of coffee in Rwanda and Burundi. This is because coffee is an import foreign exchange earner and they did not want anything to affect its production.

He said their research was not inventing anything new. Rather it was based on finding out what the best farmers were doing to get their good yields and helping the others to adopt them.

"Some of the best banana farmers get as much as 40 tons per hectare. We try to understand what they are doing and why, and then promote it to wider farmers in the community and even further," he said.

However, he says they don't always agree with the farmers views. For example, most farmers judge the productivity of their banana by the size of the bunches.

"To us, this is not the best indicator. We instead look at productivity per hectare. A farmer may have smaller bunches but more plants therefore his overall productivity is higher than the one with huge bunches but fewer plants. We therefore have been working with them to plant as many bananas as their land can accommodate based on its soil fertility, rainfall, among others" he said.

Piet says under CIALCA they have mapped most of the soils in the three countries and developed fertilizer usage recommendations that are region specific. They have also developed and are disseminating the rich information gathered on various ways that small-holder farmers can increase banana production. The crop is among their most important food and cash crop in the three countries but its productivity is very low.