Intergrated Aflatoxin Management Brief

The Aflatoxin situation in Uganda:

Over and above food and nutrition security, food safety is a key plank underpinning both. Aflatoxin has recently (March, 2021) attracted serious attention, and sparked a major diplomatic hurdle in East Africa and disrupted regional maize trade when Kenya banned importanton of maize from Uganda and Tanzania due to high aflatoxin levels (https://www.independent.co.ug/kenyas-ban-on-uganda-tanzania-maize-threatens-eac-treaty/). In previous years, the issue of aflatoxin has also made it to the regional news. In March 2019, aflatoxin attracted serious attention from the government, humanitarian agencies, and the general population because of deaths from suspected aflatoxin poisoning in Karamoja, northern Uganda (http://nelor24-7.com/2019/03/22/there-is-no-any-bactria-or-poisonfound-in-food-supplied-in-karamoja-minacheng/).

Some 262 people were affected with three confirmed dead (https://www.softpower.ug/karamoja-govt-wfp-launchprobe-into-food-poisoning-from-relief-supplies-two-confirmed-dead/).

More recently, our farmers livelihoods are threatened at the regional economic community level
(http://eagc.org/2021/03/1 6/update-on-the-maize-import-ban-by-kenya/ and https://kenyanwallstreet.com/maize-imports-to-kenya-to-face-tough-rules/) should Uganda fail to heed to the East African regional block’s trading partnership requirement to pass sanitary and phytosanitary standards on farm produce as a prerequisite to access Kenya’s market. These events point to the gravity of the intolerable situation regarding aflatoxin, concern by the government, the people of Uganda and more so the consumers of Uganda’s exported grains. On October 31, 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries launched an anti-mycotoxin campaign with special emphasis on aflatoxin mitigation, management and control, with the President of Uganda as the chief guest (https://www.pmldaily.com/news/2018/11/govt-us-in-joint-drive-to-combat-cancer-causing-moulds-in-cereals-grains.html).

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