1. AfricaRising Research Theme 4 Team
Research Theme 4: Food storage, value addition and mycotoxin management
AfricaRising Research Theme 4 Team
Dar es Salaam, June 30, 2016

2. Team Members Research theme 4 Storage and Nutrition
Adebayo Abass and team
Mycotoxins
George Mahuku and team
Integrated with:
Research theme 1: Fertilizer and maize variety trials
Job Kihara and Team
Research theme 8: Poultry feed formulations
Ben Lukuyu and Team

3. Importance of food storage and mycotoxin management
To minimize:
Quantitative losses (food security: accessibility, affordability)
Qualitative losses (nutritive value and safety of food)
Financial losses and safeguard trade - especially international trade
So that the harvested food reaches the consumer to fulfill satisfaction in terms of quality, quantity and safety
But due to absence of adequate;
Pre- & post-harvest management technologies , including storage infrastructure
Improved processing methods and machinery
Market facilities
Awareness

4. Importance of food storage and mycotoxin management
Significant post-harvest losses are experienced (20 – 40% in Africa)
Health problems from consumption of unsafe foods – mycotoxins (cancer, child stunting, immune suppression, blood and nerve defects, instant death, etc.)
Rejection of agricultural products with higher than the regulated limits for mycotoxins (aflatoxin in Kenya) – loss of market opportunities

5. What are the possible impacts of food losses and high mycotoxin in foods?
Insufficient household foods for 365days
Poor quality of nutrients in household diets
Unsafe foods
Malnutrition in children, lactating women and the elderly.
Frail or sickly population

6. Post-harvest loss assessment: characteristics of a maize-based system
Abass et al., 2014

7. What has been done in Babati?
Assessing post harvest losses during storage ( );
Quantifying mycotoxins (aflatoxin and fumonisin) in field and storage;
Testing improved dying, shelling and storage technologies
Creating awareness among stakeholders on post harvest losses, health hazards from mycotoxins and mitigation strategies;
Developing the Aflasafe technology for Tanzania
Assessing GAP measures for managing mycotoxins (Link with Theme 1)
Assessment of nutritional status of the diet for the population of maize based farming system (children and the vulnerable groups)

8. Assessment of post-harvest losses in maize
Conducted in Long, Sabilo and Seloto, involving 60 farmers and 5 tons of maize
Percentage loss of maize stored for 8 months

9. Assessment of nutritional status of pregnant women in Babati
Assessment of nutritional status of farm households in maize-based farming system (children and the other vulnerable groups)
Assessment of nutritional status of pregnant women in Babati
Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC)

10. Can adequate food storage lead to better health outcomes?
A storage experiment with farmers from : Assessment of the nutritional status of children of participating and non-participating households

11. Mycotoxin Awareness is very low

12. Prevalence of aflatoxin and fumonisin in maize in the field and stores
Aflatoxin
Fumonisin
Village and Sample
Prevalence (%)
Mean (ppb)
Range (ppb)
Mean (ppm)
Range (ppm)
Long
Maize from field 90
2.51 20
0.11
Maize from stores
100
6.91 59
0.06
Sabilo
3.79 85
3.39
0 - 24
7.445
0.4
Hallu
2.8
4.12
7.84
1.625
Matufa
61.26
19.42
8.565
2.575
Shaurimoyo
7.68
16.18
8.06
3.685
Seloto 95
2.85
3.37
7.09
1.025

13. Integration with Research theme 1: samples collected for mycotoxin analysis
Samples collected from Research theme 1
Fertilizer and variety treatments
Village
Number of samples
Fertilizer trial
Maize variety trial
Seloto 24 36
Sabilo 12 9
Hallu 10
Total 48 55
Grand total
103
Fertilizer treatments
0N 40P 60K
45N 40P 60K
90N 40P 60K
120N 40P 60K
150N 40P 60K
120N 0P 60K
120N 15P 60K
120N 30P 60K
Control
Maize varieties
SEED CO 627
Kenya H513
Pioneer 3253

14. Integration with Research theme 1: samples collected for mycotoxin analysis
Aflatoxin (ppb)
Fumonisin (ppb)
Village
Mean
Range
Seloto
0.84
0 – 5.6
6.87
0.1 – 58
Sabilo
1.49
0 – 4.5
5.78
0.1 – 50
Hallu
1.51
0 – 3.9
10.67
Low levels of aflatoxin and fumonisin
Monitoring continuing

15. Aflatoxin prevalence and levels in Feed ingredients
# Samples
Prevalence (%)
Mean (ppb)
Maximum (ppb)
Blood meal 2
100
0.75
0.9
Broken and rice brun 1
4.30
7.3
Fish Meal
0.00
Lablab
13.85
27.5
Leucaena leaf meal
6.90
6.9
Maize 5
1.82
3.5
Maize bran 6
14.43
40.8
Moringa leaf meal
1.70
1.7
Pigeon pea
Sorghum 9 78
0.88
1.8
Soybean
Sunflower seed cake 8 67
1.54
4.4

16. Interventions testing
Aflatoxin bio-control
Use of Aspergillus flavus strains that do not produce toxins
Naturally outcompete the toxic producing strains, reducing their population and hence aflatoxin
Villages selected in Babati:
Sabilo
Sangaiwe
Matufa
Hallu

17. Aflasafe TZ01 (Region-specific) Aflasafe TZ02 (Tanzania specific)
Aflasafe Development
Aflasafe TZ01 (Region-specific)
Aflasafe TZ02 (Tanzania specific)
S/N
Isolate
Haplotype 1
TMS199-3
BOWAGA
TMS64-1 
BOHAMA 2
TGS364-2
BOHIYA
TGS55-6
BAQARA 3
TMH 30-8       
BOHOCO
TMS205-5
BAQEDA 4
TMH104-9
BOPAJI
TMS137-3 
BOHAJU
Sterilizing sorghum
Coating sorghum
Packaged Product ready for trials

18. Awareness creation
Awareness creation to selected farmers during site selection
Farmers with biocontrol product
Atoxigenic strain imobilized on sorghum sporulates
A farmer applying biocontrol product

19. Ready to Scale Technologies
PICS Bags
Long Village farmer Mr. Emmanuel Margwe with his maize stored in PICS bags.
Farmers who attended field day witnessing good quality maize stored in PICS bags from September 2014.
Demonstration on PICS storage bags how to use, their benefits and supplier contacts.
98.04% of 51 farmers interviewed will continue using PICS for maize storage (February –March 2016)

20. Ready to Scale Technologies
Maize shelling machine (Diesel Engine)
Can shell an average of 500 kg per hour
In Target villages 96.08% farmers interviewed had used shelling machine
Very efficient – farmers have more time to attend to other activities

21. Interventions/Scaling-up
Warehousing
Scale up storage of maize in improved hermetic bags initiated in three villages
Farmers can store for long periods to leverage better price (price monitoring)
Reduce losses due to storage pests (quarterly sampling)
Reduce risks from aflatoxin contamination (quarterly sampling)
Maize threshing machine
Saves time (500kg per hour) compared to traditional methods
Reduces labour input by women, fewer people needed
Reduces waiting time for threshing (in the open), hence reduces chances for mycotoxin contamination
(Scaling expert required to design further experiments)

22. Ready to Scale Technologies
Collapsible drier cacoon (CDC)
Farmers see the benefit of using CDCs
~49% said they would invest

23. Interventions/Scaling-up
Product development: Introducing high protein-content recipe using locally available materials –common bean: Long Seloto and Sabilo
Creation of awareness of nutrition problem (stunting, wasting, lack of protein in diets, etc)
New highly nutritious foods developed (6); lab analysis of new foods for nutrient density
Support the establishment of pilot processing & innovation platform centers
Sensory evaluation and community-based nutrition training

24. At least four manuscripts will be prepared for publication in international peer reviewed journals in 2015/2016 as one of the deliverables for this project (Research Theme 4).

25. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING