The quality of feeds is critical to improved livestock production. Achieving this is becoming difficult because of the threat of natural toxic contaminants in feeds known as aflatoxins which affect crops and animals. Combating this menace was the focus of experts at a forum organised by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Lagos. DANIEL ESSIET reports.
Mohammed Musa (not real name) was happy when he saw his acre of lush green and well-arranged field of corn and other arable crops.
His happiness was shortlived when few months later, he saw somethings that were strange during harvest. The crops were eaten by aflatoxins, a fungi which affects cereal crops. Though the damage was not much, it still took him a long time to separate the few crops affected by aflatoxins.
All over the country, the economic consequences of aflatoxins contamination are profound. Crops affected by it often have to be destroyed or alternatively, they are sometimes converted into animal feed.
Giving contaminated feeds to susceptible animals can lead to reduced growth, illness and even death.
One victim of this misfortune is Olatunde Raheem, a poultry farmer in Ketu, a Lagos suburb. He was a big time farmer and one of the biggest player in the poultry business. All through his business life, his birds never suffered from any epidemic. He was not expecting it either but like a thief in the night, an aflatoxins tsunami struck his farm overnight.
In one fell swoop, he lost about N600,000. The cause was attributed to aflatoxins.
Raheem is just one out of the many poultry farmers that have lost their entire life savings to the ravages of aflatoxins.
Several livelihoods have been lost, tonnes of staple food destroyed and millions of naira have been lost.
This development has elicited the attention of experts who are poised to proffering solutions to the problem.
Speaking during a forum organised by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture(IITA) in Lagos, the Head of Technical Laboratory Services, Animal Care Laboratory, Ogere Remo, Ogun State,Dr Dotun Oladele, lamented that poultry farmers in the country have lost substantial investment to aflatoxins attack.
He said there were appalling circumstances where farmers lost millions of naira within few days of aflatoxins attack . He told participants that the threat of aflatoxins is real and must be tackled headlong.
Oladele said aflatoxins affect animal performance and health. Described as mycotoxins because they cannot be detected except through laboratory tests, the veterinary expert said aflatoxins weaken the animals’ immune system, disrupt the normal functioning of major organs such as the rumen, intestinal tract, liver, kidneys, reproductive system and nervous system.
He said poultry farmers suffer a great deal from aflatoxins threat, adding that all species of birds are susceptible. According to him, globally, aflatoxins attack is one of the most common poultry threats.
When crops are attacked, the common symptoms include watery eyes, persistent coughing and gasping. The condition affects egg production and quality with brown broiler eggs turning to white.The consequence is huge financial losses and higher veterinary costs. His concern, however, was that the situation was likely to get worse as most farmers are still not aware of the problem.
According to him, the threat is particularly hard to contain once there is an outbreak but added that to prevent it, poultry farmers have to test feed raw materials, especially sources of protein, carbohydrate and fibre for aflatoxins level. This would help classify samples for rejection or acceptance.
Where there are outbreaks, however, he advised that steps be taken to eschew colossal losses. These involve taking a complete history of the case, performing a post-mortem examination and noting the lessons observed.
On regular intervals, he said farm owners must analyse feed consumed by birds to know the aflatoxin level.
He said: “There may be need to totally withdraw such feed or change a major raw material which was responsible for high aflatoxins level in finished feed.”
Indeed, aflatoxins have become a challenge for livestock farmers’ quest to optimise production and remain profitable over the long term. Between January 2012 and December 2012, he said a total of 2,403 samples were tested for total aflatoxins levels at the Animal Care Laboratory, Ogere Remo, Ogun State. The type of samples included, maize, wheat, rice and corn offal, poultry and fish feed, indomie waste among others.
For him, if the livestock industry is to tackle the threat of aflatoxins and remain profitable, it is imperative for farmers get as much help as possible. On the whole, he said it was worth testing for in both grain and pelleted feedstuffs.
A food safety expert and former chairman, Mycotoxicology Society of Nigeria, Prof Stephen Fapohunda said farmers face difficulties controlling the threat as they are not easily noticeable on time.
He said carrying preventive measures during planting makes it easy to control, adding that farmers needed to get their risk assessments right ahead of harvest. Fapohunda said compulsory tests at mills would help to control the impact of the fungi. He noted that it was important growers recognise the value of the risk assessment as it will continue to play an important part in managing the risk of aflatoxins. In particular, he said risk assessment during pre-harvest would ensure that the likelihood of any aflatoxins problem is accurately taken into consideration.
He said procedures to be followed at different steps of processing in the plant such as receipt of materials, storage, distribution, pest control, maintenance of plant and machinery, personal hygiene, training , traceability, labelling, various critical points among others were also vital.
He warned that farmers could lose their farm assurance status if tests indicate high aflatoxin levels.
Fapohunda stressed the need to spread awareness among processors, traders, exporters and farmers to control quality of crops during production, storage and processing and sensitise them about aflatoxin contamination in the supply chain.
Leader, AgResults Aflasafe Team, IITA, Ibadan, Debo Akande said when crops become infected, they show symptoms of head blight and may have individual bleached spikelets or partially bleached ears. At harvest, this could result in pink or white shrivelled grains. However, he said it was possible for aflatoxins to be present without discoloured grains.
In Nigeria, he said an between 40 to 60 per cent of maize has unacceptably high levels of aflatoxin. The contamination, he noted, has harmful health effects for consumers and growers. Akande said a bio control product, Aflasafe, developed by IITA and other partners has reduced aflatoxin contamination of maize by between 80 and 90 per cent.
According to him, the AgResults Aflasafe Project is providing incentives to small farmers adopting the biological control innovation. It focuses on consumption and production impact of aflatoxin reduced maize.
So far, he said few maize-producing organisations and farmers are aware of the aflatoxin problem or unwilling to invest without confidence that there will be a market for aflatoxin-free crops. At the same time, he said regulators are constrained in their ability to enforce limits on aflatoxin contamination. He said the Aflasafe Pilot was implemented across the country by four different aggregator entities, with varying results. He explained that the United States (U.S.) acceptable limit for aflatoxin concentration is 20ng/g. He said: ”Every implementer’s average was well below this limit, except for one Babban Gona sample, two Kaduna CADP samples, and one Kano CADP samples that exceeded this limit. On average, Aflasafe effectively kept Aflatoxin levels well below the U.S. acceptable limit contrary to sampling trends in previous analyses.”
He said 10 implementers are working with more than 4000 farmers this year; 24 implementers with more than 18,000 maize farmers next year and 36 implementers with more than 36,000 maize farmers in 2016.
He said the project expects 80 tonness of aflasafe will be applied to an average of 8000 hectares of farmland this year; 540 tonnes to an average of 54000 hectares of farmland in 2015 and 10800 tonnes of aflasafe to an average of 108000 hectares of land in 2016. This year, Akande said the project is working on producing 29,000 tons of aflasafe treated maize. As multiplier effect, he expects 490,000 tonnes of low-aflatoxin maize to be produced over a four -year period by 36,000 small farmers.
A group, Alliance for Green Revolution (AGRA) said premature harvesting and poor storage techniques of grains are the main causes of the aflatoxin poisoning in maize. AGRA has now teamed up with local cereals boards in an initiative dubbed ‘storage and post harvest management.’ The initiative educates farmers on handling grains before and after harvesting and advises on the right conditions to store them.
The AGRA initiative will also sensitise farmers on gauging the right moisture content before harvesting their grains. “At harvest the grain’s moisture content shouldn’t exceed 13.5 percent,” the organisation said. However, most farmers unknowingly harvest early when the moisture content is over the 13.5 per cent mark or end up storing maize in damp environments.
