The Hindu : Call to end aflatoxin contamination in groundnut

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 17, 2002

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National

Call to end aflatoxin contamination in groundnut

By G. Venkataramani

CHENNAI MARCH 16 . ``It is startling to know that more than 20 million people in India alone are carriers of the Hepatitis B virus. Aflatoxins can enter into human and cattle food-chain if the contaminated material is consumed. Our recent studies have clearly shown the risk of exposure of a large cross-section of population, especially children, in India, as result of the presence of non-permissible levels of aflatoxin in groundnut kernels, confectioneries and in milk,'' according to D.V.R. Reddy, virologist and consultant to the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Aflatoxin is one of the mycotoxins that contaminate agricultural products and it has assumed economic importance because of its influence on the health of humans and livestock, and on the marketability of agricultural products. Aflatoxins are carcinogens and their influence to cause liver cancer is enhanced by the presence of the Hepatitis B virus, Dr. Reddy told a three-day meeting on `Strategies for reducing aflatoxin levels in groundnut-based food and feeds in India' in Hyderabad recently.

``Aflatoxins can be estimated by analytical and immunological methods. Cost-effective technologies have been developed at ICRISAT, facilitating analysis of a large number of samples at less than $ 1 per sample,'' said Farid Waliyar, ICRISAT's Principal Scientist and coordinator for the meeting.

ICRISAT has been able to attract funding from various sources to workout cost-effective methods for minimising aflatoxin contamination ``on-farm'' and during storage. Each of these projects addresses specific issues related to contamination, and care has been taken to ensure that they complement each other and that the technologies are adaptable to situations in developing countries, according to him.

Building partnership among scientists, NGOs and farmers to create awareness about the harmful effects of aflatoxins and to promote management practices to eliminate aflatoxin contamination in groundnut should be on top of the agenda of the second phase of an ambitious research project at ICRISAT near Hyderabad.

Detection and estimation of aflatoxin in various food and feeds in collaboration with medical and animal husbandry sectors should be accorded equal priority. These are some of the key recommendations that emerged from the three-day meeting.

Funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), U.K., the second phase of the project will also assess the risk of aflatoxin contamination during pre and postharvest of groundnut crop.

The project will help in the integration of aflatoxin management practices that can improve groundnut productivity and quality.

Highlighting the role of NGOs in the participatory research, R.S.S. Hopper, Senior Team Member of Agriculture-Man-Ecology (AME) — a bilateral project of the Governments of India and the Netherlands — said that more aflatoxin awareness generation programmes should be conducted among the various stakeholders to get concrete and early results.

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