Biological controls for aflatoxin reduction
| dc.creator | Bandyopadhyay, Ranajit | |
| dc.creator | Cotty, Peter J. | |
| dc.date | 2013 | |
| dc.date | 2017-03-20T13:02:04Z | |
| dc.date | 2017-03-20T13:02:04Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-06-27T16:05:42Z | |
| dc.description | Aflatoxin exposure is frequent and widespread in most African countries where the key staples, maize and groundnuts, are particularly vulnerable to aflatoxin contamination. Aspergillus flavus is the major cause of aflatoxin contamination although other aflatoxin producers are less frequently implicated. These fungi are ubiquitous in Africa where they occupy soil, colonizing diverse organic matter, and produce spores that associate with crops leading to aflatoxin formation in both fields and crop stores. Exposure to aflatoxins can be reduced, at considerable cost, with monitoring and crop destruction. Effects of preharvest and postharvest interventions have thus far proved to be inconsistent, continuing to leave farmers vulnerable to contamination. Furthermore, although storage conditions are generally good in advanced agriculture systems, aflatoxins frequently form prior to harvest. Nevertheless, integrated aflatoxin management practices are recommended to reduce contamination. Preharvest crop contamination with aflatoxins costs farmers in the United States hundreds of millions of dollars annually (Robens 1988). In 1988, major US crop organizations joined the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to form the Multi-crop Aflatoxin Working Group to increase research toward ending repeated epidemics of aflatoxin contamination; the development of resistant crops through breeding and transgenics were major emphases for the twenty years of this effort. However, when the program was discontinued in 2008, commercially useful resistant crops had not been developed (Brown et al. 2013), indicating that the pursuit of host resistance is a risky research strategy not guaranteed to succeed. Fortunately, there was an unexpected and different kind of advance: a biological control technique that greatly reduces aflatoxin contamination of all susceptible crops across broad areas in a cost effective manner. This biocontrol, which is manufactured and marketed to scale in the United States as either Aflaguard® or Aspergillus flavus AF36, has been proven to be safe and environmentally sound with over a decade of testing and commercial use on cottonseed, groundnuts, maize, and pistachios. The technique reduces the aflatoxin-producing potential of fungal communities associated with crops by over 80 percent with a single application (Cotty 2006). These biocontrol products reliably reduce aflatoxins during crop development and maturation and remain the most effective aflatoxin prevention tools available in the United States. The biocontrol approach has been adapted to African environments. | |
| dc.format | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/80434 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/122354 | |
| dc.language | en | |
| dc.publisher | International Food Policy Research Institute | |
| dc.rights | Open Access | |
| dc.source | Bandyopadhyay, Ranajit and Cotty, Peter J. 2013. Biological controls for aflatoxin reduction. In Aflatoxins: Finding solutions for improved food safety, eds. Unnevehr, Laurian J. and Grace, Delia. 2020 Vision Focus Brief 20(16). Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://hdl.handle.net/10568/80434 | |
| dc.subject | aflatoxins | |
| dc.subject | maize | |
| dc.subject | groundnuts | |
| dc.subject | aspergillus flavus | |
| dc.subject | biocontrol | |
| dc.title | Biological controls for aflatoxin reduction | |
| dc.type | Brief |