Development and scale-up of bioprotectants to keep staple foods safe from aflatoxin contamination in Africa

Aflatoxins pose a significant public health risk, decrease productivity and profitability hamper trade. To minimize aflatoxin contamination biocontrol technology based on atoxigenic strains of Aspergillus flavus that do not produce is used widely in the United States. The technology, with generic name Aflasafe, has been improved adapted for use Africa. Aflasafe products have developed or are currently being 20 African countries. Aflatoxin scaled up several countries through mix public, private, public-private interventions. Farmers commercially treated nearly 400,000 ha maize groundnut achieving >90% reduction contamination. This chapter summarizes biology aflatoxin-producing fungi various factors affecting their occurence, including climate change. Various management practices mitigation then discussed. These include biological control, which increasingly adopted by farmers We discuss product development commercialization Subsequently, we highlight some barriers to adoption other challenges.