Innovations in Food Trade : Rethinking Aflatoxin Management in East Africa
The high prevalence of aflatoxins in maize and other staple foods in the EAC has become an important obstacle to domestic and regional food trade. While EAC Member States have made good progress in promulgating regionally harmonized standards that...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/278421605883762320/Innovations-in-Food-Trade-Rethinking-Aflatoxin-Management-in-East-Africa http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34846 |
| Summary: | The high prevalence of aflatoxins in
maize and other staple foods in the EAC has become an
important obstacle to domestic and regional food trade.
While EAC Member States have made good progress in
promulgating regionally harmonized standards that include
mandatory upper limits on aflatoxins, the high cost and
complexity of meeting these standards has led to a large
share of food being traded outside the regulatory framework
thereby distancing poor producers from the market and
undermining the prospects for regional value chain
development. Especially as EAC countries look to recover
from COVID-19 (coronavirus) and build resilient food systems
for the future, minimizing the cost of market transactions
is more important than ever. The need for aflatoxin
management begins at the farm level where fundamental
challenges with smallholder agriculture make crops highly
susceptible to contamination.1 Bimodal rainfall across much
of the EAC make sun drying and storage difficult and poor
post-harvest practices such as hand shelling of grain and
drying of crops directly on the ground compound the problem.
Simple improvements in these areas are possible but add to
cost so can be difficult for poor farmers and traders to
justify without adequate incentives. As awareness of
aflatoxins grows in the EAC, many farmers are adopting
improved practices on crops saved for family consumption but
not for market sale. Current regulatory approaches to
managing aflatoxins in the EAC rely on expensive testing and
border controls that are easily circumvented. In Uganda, SPS
procedures now require exporters to submit a certificate of
aflatoxin analysis from one of three nationally recognized
laboratories for every consignment. Throughout the EAC,
tests happen far away from the main production areas and
only large firms have the wherewithal to comply. Similarly,
at the consumer end of domestic and regional value chains,
only large industrial mills perform regular tests and are
subject to routine inspection. Meanwhile, small traders and
SMEs can navigate around the regulatory system since borders
are porous and small mills are rarely inspected. This
situation not only leaves the EAC with little to no
effective control over aflatoxins but precludes the payment
of premiums to small farmers and offtakers that are needed
to reward improvements at upstream stages of the value chain
where aflatoxin problems begin. |
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