Abstract
Aflatoxins are mainly produced by certain strains of Aspergillus flavus, which are found in diverse agricultural crops. In many lower-income countries, aflatoxins pose serious public health issues since the occurrence of these toxins can be considerably common and even extreme. Aflatoxins can negatively affect health of livestock and poultry due to contaminated feeds. Additionally, they significantly limit the development of international trade as a result of strict regulation in high-value markets. Due to their high stability, aflatoxins are not only a problem during cropping, but also during storage, transport, processing, and handling steps. Consequently, innovative evidence-based technologies are urgently required to minimize aflatoxin exposure. Thus far, biological control has been developed as the most innovative potential technology of controlling aflatoxin contamination in crops, which uses competitive exclusion of toxigenic strains by non-toxigenic ones. This technology is commercially applied in groundnuts maize, cottonseed, and pistachios during pre-harvest stages. Some other effective technologies such as irradiation, ozone fumigation, chemical and biological control agents, and improved packaging materials can also minimize post-harvest aflatoxins contamination in agricultural products. However, integrated adoption of these pre- and post-harvest technologies is still required for sustainable solutions to reduce aflatoxins contamination, which enhances food security, alleviates malnutrition, and strengthens economic sustainability.
Highlights
Food security is effectually achieved when the food pillars, including food availability, food access, food utilization, and food stability are at levels that allow all people at all times to have physical and economic access to affordable, safe, and nutritious food to meet the requirement for an active and a healthy life (FAO, 1996)
For M-type aflatoxins, these compounds are normally not found on crops, but their metabolites are found in both the meat and milk of animals whose feedstuffs have been contaminated by AF-B1 and AF-B2 (Iqbal et al, 2015; de Ruyck, De Boevre, Huybrechts, & De Saeger, 2015; Sherif, Salama, & Abdel-Wahhab, 2009)
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the United States Department of Agriculture - Agriculture Research Service together with other partners have been researching in Africa on non-toxigenic biocontrol fungi that act through competitive exclusion strategy (Bandyopadhyay & Cotty, 2013; Grace et al, 2015)
Summary
Food security is effectually achieved when the food pillars, including food availability, food access, food utilization, and food stability are at levels that allow all people at all times to have physical and economic access to affordable, safe, and nutritious food to meet the requirement for an active and a healthy life (FAO, 1996). AF contamination negatively impacts crop and animal production leading to natural resource waste, and decreased market value that causes significant economic losses Due to these effects, different countries and some international organizations have established strict regulations in order to control AF contamination in food and feeds and to prohibit trade of contaminated products (Juan, Ritieni & Man~es, 2012). If the EU aflatoxin standard is adopted worldwide, lowerincome countries such as those in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will face both economic losses and additional costs related to meeting those standards This situation requires alternative technologies at pre- and post-harvest levels aimed to minimize contamination of commercial foods and feeds, at least to ensure that AF levels remain below safe limits (Prietto et al, 2015). Implications for research and management policies addressing AF issues are highlighted
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