RATIN

Help rid maize of toxin

Posted on March, 20, 2020 at 09:34 am


 
The revelation by the Kenya Bureau Standards and millers about the high levels of aflatoxin in maize confirms a perennial problem. This makes the maize unfit for human consumption, yet this is the nation’s staple, especially in towns.
 
Whereas a good number of the rural people need not buy sifted maizemeal as they grow most of their own food, the lack of maize flour in towns means hunger and starvation.
 
It’s a pity, therefore, that the efforts to boost food safety in the country are going down the drain because of factors that could easily have been prevented — such as poor post-harvest practices.
 
Of course, consumers risk death, but millers and others investing in the food chain stare at losses as they cannot sell the rest of the flour they will have milled and packaged. This is terrible.
 
POOR STORAGE
 
Largely to blame for the high aflatoxin, according to the experts, is poor storage and the heavy rains in maize-growing zones. The Grain Belt Millers Association says the contamination has worsened the already acute shortage of maize. The millers are operating at 30 per cent of their capacity due to low supply of the grain as a result of the high aflatoxin content.
But the biggest challenge is that, while the big millers regularly test and reject maize with high toxin content, it still ends up in the informal market posho mills, eventually reaching households, where it is consumed.
 
Agricultural experts warn that using uncertified seeds, premature harvest, especially during the rainy season, and continuous cultivation of the same crop on the same parcel of land contribute to the high incidence of contamination.
 
Consumers deserve quality maize flour, hence the need for a robust campaign against aflatoxin with assistance to farmers to improve cultivation and storage.
 
Source: Daily Nation