Presentation made as part of the webinar on "Healthy Harvests in a Changing Climate. Nature based solutions for better plant health on smallholder farms affected by climate change". This was organised jointly by SLU, CGIAR, AICCRA, IITA

1. Presented by Titilayo Falade (IITA)
on behalf of the Aflasafe Team
28 April 2022
Aflasafe as a climate-
smart technology for Food
Safety and One Health

2. Madam Susan Mutungwa (widow) lost her husband, son and
grandson to aflatoxin contaminated maize. She too was poisoned by
her food and can hardly recover from this significant losses
Source NTV Kenya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23JzdwQx4vY&t=47s
Photo Credit: Alejandro Ortega-Beltran/IITA
Maize sampled from farmers harvest in Mali.
Aflatoxin contamination is not always visible and can
occur in the absence of visible fungal infection.

3. • Aflatoxins are natural chemical
toxins produced by some fungi
belonging to Aspergillus section
Flavi
• Aflatoxins contaminate food
when these ubiquitous
toxigenic fungi contaminate
food
• Ingested aflatoxins through diet
is the most common route of
exposure
• Aflatoxins cannot be perceived
with senses of sight, taste or
smell
• Warm and humid regions
between 40oN and 40oS of the
equator are at risk perennial
contamination
• Several food grains, tree crops,
spices, nuts are exposed to
aflatoxins

4. Aflatoxins
Environmental
health
Human
health
Animal
health
One
health
CO2
Environmental
health
Human
health
Animal
health
One
health
Image
credit:
cornell.edu
Integrated food safety management system
including Aflasafe

5. What Aflasafe is
Aflasafe is an innovative nature-based solution for aflatoxins. It is a bioprotectant
comprising of carefully-selected naturally-occurring Aspergillus flavus that cannot produce
aflatoxins in the crop and works by populations of the aflatoxin-producers. Their use results
in little to no contamination.
Active ingredient - A. flavus
country-specific widely distributed
and adapted to multiple crops

6. Aflasafe – a climate smart nature-based solution
Aflasafe is addressing the challenge of aflatoxins in sub-Saharan Africa and growing in its use
within the continent
Over 1,000,000 tons of aflatoxin-safe crops produced via public-private partnerships that are
resulting in safer food and increased farmer income
Sudan
Niger
Togo
www.aflasafe.com

7. Voices of farmers: https://soundcloud.com/radioiita/solution-against-the-dangers-of-aflatoxin-contamination
Aflasafe Contributions to One Health

8. Safety of Aflasafe from Eco-toxicological studies

9. Resource for Trainers: Training of
Trainers
Resource For Farmers on Aflasafe
Application
Resource from Crop Handling
from pre-harvest to meal
preparation

10. Aflatoxins in Human and Animal Health
• Human and Animal Health: Higher
temperatures increase fatigue → reduced
care for livestock
• Animal Health: Reduced care → Animals
prone to aflatoxicosis and other diseases due
to immunosuppression
• Animal Health: Ill and/or fatigued field
animals → unable to provided needed
support
• Human and Animal Health: Increased
antibiotics-use for ill animals →
antimicrobial resistance from
misuse/overuse
• Human Health: Animal products with
aflatoxins and/or drug residues → poor
human health outcomes
• Human Health: Aflatoxin-associated illnesses
and antimicrobial resistance of human
pathogens → inability to work productively
Human
health
Animal
health
Scenario of smallholder farmer:
•Extended manual work done outdoors in caring for livestock (smaller
livestock by women and larger by men).
•Women continue with home care and childcare activities post-field,
vulnerable groups incl. people with cardiovascular disease.
•Men attend to livestock care and seek funds for medical needs
•Trained animals used for conducting field activities
5 to 28% liver cancers, 28% reduced
child growth, mother-to-child
transmission
Liver, kidney toxicities, reduced
immunities, mortalities, reduced
quality of spermatozoa,
With increased temperature, stress to humans and animals is increased

11. Scenario of smallholder farmer:
• Men and women handle crops for long hours at pre-harvest and
harvest stages under harsh climatic conditions
• Men are more involved in the use of agrochemicals for crop
applications exposed to chemicals. Women are more involved in
threshing at harvest times exposed to small particulate matter
Aflatoxins in Human and Environmental Health
Environmental
health
Human
health
• Environmental Health: Harsh conditions →
toxigenic strains populations increase → higher
risk of aflatoxin prevalence
• Plant Health: Changes to biological systems
including circadian rhythms → new or emerging
pests → biotic stress promoting aflatoxin
contamination (e.g. FAW)
• Plant Health: Drought, water stresses, and
reduced care → aflatoxin contamination, other
pathogens treated with agrochemicals
• Human Health: Dietary exposure from aflatoxins,
pesticide residues in crops negatively → negative
health outcomes (e.g. liver cancer,
immunosuppression, increased allergies, spore
inhalation)
• Human Health: Reduced food and nutritional
security → health risks and fatigue from long
hours of field work
With increased temperature, stress to plants, microbes and animals
is increased
Microbes
Plants
Aflatoxin-induced liver cancers,
reduced child growth, disease
cased by improper use of
agrochemicals
Agrochemical use to control
disease on stressed plants

12. Scenario of smallholder farmer:
•Extended manual work done outdoors in
agricultural production
•Women attend to smaller animals and men to larger
ones
•Men use agrochemicals for field applications
•Bulls are used for farm activities: ploughing, etc
Aflatoxins in Animal and Environmental Health
• Environmental Health: Toxigenic microbes increase in
environment due to better adaptation to harsh
environmental conditions. Changes to biological patterns
leads to emergence of new pests
• Plant Health: Increased biotic and abiotic stresses leads to
higher aflatoxin accumulation in the crops for feed
• Animal Health: Animals exposed to aflatoxin-
contaminated feed at risk of diseases due to
immunosuppression, and exposed to aflatoxicosis
• Plant Health: Farm animals sub-optimally weeding,
ploughing, etc.; reducing plant productivity, morbid
animals are treated with antibiotics and misuse can lead
to increased drug-resistance of pathogens
• Environmental Health: Manure used from animals treated
with antimicrobials used for field treatment. Exposure to
antimicrobials in manure affects the rhizosphere tilting the
adaptation of plants and microbes
• Plant Health: Plants no longer respond well to
agrochemicals used to treat pests due to antimicrobial
overuse evident in manure
Environmental
health
Animal
health
Microbes
Plants

13. Aflasafe as a nature-based solution in One Health
• Environmental Health: Supports a healthy balance of
populations of non-toxigenic strains in the
environment
• Environment Health: Plants can cope and are not
stressed
• Environmental Health: Plants are healthy and
produce good quality produce
• Human health: Dietary exposure of humans and
animals to safe produce enables sufficient ability for
plant care
• Environmental health: There is limited build-up of
pesticides in the environment and decreased
incidences of plant resistance
• Animal health: Reduced need for antimicrobials to
address aflatoxin-induced animal morbidities
• Human and Environmental health: Reduced exposure
of humans and plants to antimicrobials as residues
from compost or in diet from animal-based products
Environmental
health
Human
health
Animal
health
One
health
Microbes
Plants
CO2

14. They reported
improvement in
grain quality with
the use of
Aflasafe for crop
production
He reported
reduction in the
mortality of birds
and the use of
antibiotics with
the use of grains
treated with
Aflasafe

15. Thank you for your attention