Assessment of willingness-to-pay for Aflasafe KE01, a native biological control product for aflatoxin management in Kenya

Aflatoxin biocontrol in practice requires a multidisciplinary, long-term approach

One of the most elusive food safety problems is the contamination of staple crops with the highly carcinogenic aflatoxins produced by Aspergillus section Flavi fungi. Governments, farmers, institutions, consumers, and companies demand aflatoxin solutions. Many aflatoxin management technologies exist, but their real-life use and effectiveness is determined by diverse factors. Biocontrol products based on atoxigenic isolates of A. flavus can effectively reduce aflatoxins from field to fork. However, development, testing, and registration of this technology is a laborious process. Further, several barriers prevent the sustainable use of biocontrol products. There are challenges to have the products accepted, to make them available at scale and develop mechanisms for farmers to buy them, to have the products correctly used, to demonstrate their value, and to link farmers to buyers of aflatoxin-safe crops. Developing an effective aflatoxin management technology is the first, major step. The second one, perhaps more complicated and unfortunately seldomly discussed, is to develop mechanisms to have it used at scale, sustainably, and converged with other complementary technologies. Here, challenges and actions to scale the aflatoxin biocontrol technology in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa are described with a view to facilitating aflatoxin management efforts in Africa and beyond.

Induction of Resistance of Antagonistic Bacterium Burkholderia contaminans to Postharvest Botrytis cinerea in Rosa vinifera

In order to study the problem that grapes are vulnerable to microbial infection and decay during storage, a method based on antagonistic Burkholderia contaminans against postharvest Botrytis cinerea of Rosa vinifera was proposed in this paper. The method tested the resistance induction mechanism of Botrytis cinerea after harvest and determined the fruit decay rate treated by antagonistic Burkholderia contaminans. The results showed that the antagonistic bacterium B-1 had bacteriostatic effect on many common pathogens of fruits and vegetables to a certain extent, and the bacteriostatic range was wide. Among them, the inhibition rate of Fusarium moniliforme was 75.5% and that of Botrytis cinerea was 51.2%. After testing, it can be found that antagonistic bacteria have an inhibitory effect on pathogenic fungi and have an effect on phenylpropane metabolic pathway, reactive oxygen species metabolic pathway, and the activities of other resistance-related enzymes. Through comparison, it can be found that the antagonistic Burkholderia contaminans has a strong antibacterial mechanism against Botrytis cinerea of rose grape after harvest. The fruit treated with antagonistic B Burkholderia B-1 has significantly reduced the decay rate and increased the activity of antibacterial active protein.

Comprehensive analysis of multiple mycotoxins and Aspergillus flavus metabolites in maize from Kenyan households

This study assessed the levels of mycotoxins in maize from Kenyan households. Further, local open pollinated maize varieties were compared with commercial hybrids to evaluate which variety is less susceptible to mycotoxin contamination. Four hundred and eighty (n = 480) maize samples were collected in the years 2018-2020 from households in Eastern, Western, Coastal and Lake Victoria regions of Kenya. Liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry was used to detect and quantify 22 mycotoxins, along with 31 Aspergillus flavus metabolites in the samples. Eastern Kenya had the highest aflatoxin (AF) contamination with 75% of samples having AF levels above the Kenyan regulatory limits (10 μg/kg), the highest concentration was 558.1 μg/kg. In Western Kenya, only 18% of samples had concentration levels above the Kenyan regulatory limits for AF with highest sample having 73.3 μg/kg. The Lake Victoria region had the most fumonisins (F) contamination, with 53% of the samples having fumonisin B₁ (FB₁) < 1000 μg/kg. However, only 20% of the samples surpassed the Kenyan regulatory limit for total fumonisins (2000 μg/kg) with the highest concentration being 13,022 μg/kg. In addition, 21.6% of samples from the Lake Victoria region had zearalenone (ZEN) and deoxynivalenol (DON) above regulatory limits for European countries (1000 μg/kg). Western region had the least A. flavus metabolites contamination (18%) while the Eastern region had the highest incidence of A. flavus metabolites (81%). Among the A. flavus metabolites, cyclopiazonic acid (CPA), beta-cyclopiazonic acid (β CPA), flavacol (FLV) and methylcitreo-isocoumarin (MIC) positively correlated with each other but negatively correlated with the other metabolites. Significant positive co-occurrence was also noted among Fusarium mycotoxins: nivalenol (NIV) positively correlated with DON (r = 0.81), fusarenon-X (FX) (r = 0.81) and ZEN (r = 0.70). Negative correlations were observed between Aspergillus and Fusarium mycotoxins: aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) negatively correlated with FB₁ (r = -0.11), FX (r = -0.17) and ZEN (r = -0.20). Local open-pollinated maize varieties (L-opv) were less susceptible to mycotoxin contamination compared to the commercial hybrids (C-hy). This study reveals that Kenyan maize is contaminated with multiple mycotoxins most of which are not regulated in Kenya despite being regulated in other parts of the world. A comprehensive legislation should therefore be put in place to protect the Kenyan public against chronic exposure to these mycotoxins. In addition to high yield, there is a need for commercial hybrid maize breeders to incorporate mycotoxin resistance as an important trait in germplasm improvement in seeds production.