Aflasafe®: Aflatoxin management

Aflatoxin-safe fields and crops for safer food in Africa

Aflasafe® is a biocontrol technology for aflatoxins management that uses harmless types of the fungus Aspergilus flavus which do not and cannot produce the toxins. The atoxigenic fungi are coated onto ordinary sorghum grain for transferring these innovative biocontrol agents to farmers’ fields. A blue food coloring dye is added to distinguish Aflasafe ® from other sorghum for food or feed use.

This technology is TAAT1 validated.

8•9

Scaling readiness: idea maturity 8/9; level of use 9/9

Adults 18 and over: Positive high

They benefit economically from the increased yield and market access facilitated by Aflasafe.

The poor: Positive medium

By helping increase yields and access to higher-value markets and ensuring that crops meet the necessary quality standards.

Under 18: Positive high

By helping ensure safer food, lowering the risk of stunting, liver damage, and other health issues related to aflatoxin exposure.

Women: Positive high

By enhancing the role of women in agriculture, providing them with greater economic opportunities and improving family well-being.

Climate adaptability: Highly adaptable

By improving crop quality and reducing losses, Aflasafe contributes to food security in regions facing changing climate conditions.

Farmer climate change readiness: Significant improvement

By improving crop quality and reducing aflatoxin contamination, Aflasafe helps farmers improve productivity even in suboptimal conditions.

Biodiversity: Positive impact on biodiversity

By reducing pesticide use, Aflasafe supports a healthier agroecosystem, promoting biodiversity in agricultural landscapes.

Environmental health: Greatly improves environmental health

Soil quality: Improves soil health and fertility

By reducing the need for chemical inputs, which can degrade soil quality over time.

Problem

Aflatoxin Contamination: Widespread and severe contamination of staple crops, animal feeds, and processed foods across Africa with aflatoxin, a highly toxic and cancer-causing poison.
Health Impacts: Consumption of contaminated food by humans and livestock leads to serious health issues, including liver cancer, weakened immunity, growth stunting, and organ damage.
Economic Impact: Aflatoxin contamination makes food unfit for consumption and trade, resulting in significant economic losses.
Food Safety: Ensuring safe and toxin-free food for both human and animal consumption is a challenge.

Solution

Aflasafe® Biocontrol: Aflasafe® is a natural biocontrol technology that uses harmless strains of Aspergillus flavus to outcompete poisonous strains, preventing aflatoxin production.
Safe and Cost-effective: Aflasafe® offers a safe and cost-effective solution for reducing aflatoxin levels in food.
Local Adaptation: The technology is well adapted to African conditions, including heat and drought, and uses native atoxigenic fungal strains.
Collaborative Screening: Aflasafe® products are developed through extensive field testing and screening, selecting strains that effectively reduce aflatoxin.
Preventing Contamination: Aflasafe® stops aflatoxin contamination at various stages, including transportation, storage, and processing, ensuring safer food supply chains.

Key points to design your project

This technology serves as a transformative solution. It is easy to use and beneficial for the producer and it offers an eco-friendly alternative to using pesticides. In addition, it supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by tackling hunger and improving the health of users.

To integrate this technology into your project, and create a list of project activities and prerequisites and plan these activities:

- Considering the technology cost of 12 to 20 USD per Ha and a requirement of 10 kg per ha, estimate the quantity of products needed for your project.

- Consider also the place of supply and include the delivery cost to the project site and account for import clearance and duties if relevant.

A team of trainers could provide training and support during project installation. Include the cost for training and post-training support for using the technology.

Communication support for the technology should be developed (flyers, videos, radio broadcasts, etc.)

For better optimization of the improved maize variety, it is recommended to associate with other post-harvest practices such as proper drying and storage.

To implement the technology in your country, you could collaborate with agricultural development institutes and agro-dealers.

10 kg/ha

Recommended dosage application

4 kg/acre

Recommended dosage application

IP

Trademark

Scaling Readiness describes how complete a technology’s development is and its ability to be scaled. It produces a score that measures a technology’s readiness along two axes: the level of maturity of the idea itself, and the level to which the technology has been used so far.

Each axis goes from 0 to 9 where 9 is the “ready-to-scale” status. For each technology profile in the e-catalogs we have documented the scaling readiness status from evidence given by the technology providers. The e-catalogs only showcase technologies for which the scaling readiness score is at least 8 for maturity of the idea and 7 for the level of use.

The graph below represents visually the scaling readiness status for this technology, you can see the label of each level by hovering your mouse cursor on the number.

Scaling readiness score of this technology

Maturity of the idea 8 out of 9

Uncontrolled environment: tested

Level of use 9 out of 9

Common use by intended users, in the real world

Maturity of the idea										Level of use
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Enabling Environments for Sustainable Regional Agriculture Extension (ENSURE)

Project funder: African Development Bank & East Africa Community
Planned Budget: USD 13.14 million
Location: East African Community (Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda)
Planned duration: 2024–2027
Deployment means: On-farm demonstrations, training, digital tools (SMS, IVR, video, radio, pictorial guides), bundled inputs + advisory services, Training of Trainers (ToT)
Project main implementer: East African Community (EAC)
Project Description: Strengthen agricultural extension systems using digital tools, private-sector approaches, regional coordination, and multi-commodity focus (maize, cassava, rice, drought-resilient crops).
Objective: Promote regional extension, enhance advisory services, scale climate-smart technologies, build sustainable private sector–led extension systems, strengthen policy and regulatory frameworks.
Expected outcome: Increased adoption of improved technologies, improved farmer productivity and profitability, enhanced access to quality inputs and pest management solutions, strengthened resilience to climate and pest risks, regional market integration, job creation for youth and agripreneurs.
Figures of adoption: Target 3 million farmers reached over 4 years, digital extension pilots in 7 EAC states, training of extension agents, lead farmers, cooperatives, and youth agripreneurs, rollout of Pest Information Management Systems (PIMS).
Profiles of adopters: Smallholder farmers, women, youth agripreneurs, cooperatives and producer organizations, public and private extension agents, National Plant Protection Officers (NPPOs).
Lessons learnt: System-level approaches needed beyond technology delivery, digital tools most effective with in-person facilitation, supportive policy/regulatory environment critical, regional harmonization boosts scalability and cross-border diffusion of technologies.

Projet d’Appui au Développement des Chaînes de Valeurs en soutien au Programme de Transformation de l’Agriculture (PADCV-PTA)

Project funder: African Development Bank
Planned Budget: USD 311.609 million
Location: 6 provinces in Congo (Kongo Central, Kwango, Maï-Ndombe, Kasaï Oriental, Lomami, Sud-Kivu)
Planned duration: 2024–2029
Deployment means: Direct access to improved seeds and planting materials, seed system strengthening (INERA, SENASEM, multipliers), Farmer Field Schools and demonstration plots (1,600 sites), strengthened public extension (SNV), training/capacity building, subsidized or cost-shared inputs and equipment, irrigation infrastructure (5,200 ha), rural road rehabilitation (600 km), contract farming and private sector partnerships
Project main implementer: Social Fund of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Project Description: Implements the National Pact for Food and Agriculture (PNAA) using an integrated value chain approach combining technology access (seeds, practices), infrastructure development (irrigation, roads), extension services, farmer organization, finance, and market access to boost productivity, reduce imports, strengthen resilience, and structure agricultural value chains.
Objective: Restore national seed capital, scale improved and climate-resilient technologies, increase productivity, facilitate access to inputs/advisory/markets/finance, promote climate-smart agriculture, strengthen farmer organizations and value chain governance, reduce food imports, and enhance resilience to climate shocks and conflict.
Expected outcome: ~80% crop yield increase (rice, cassava, maize, soybean), 1.68 million tons/year additional production, expansion of irrigated rice, improved access to seeds/inputs, stronger farmer organizations, better post-harvest handling and market integration, increased private sector engagement, reduced food imports, improved national food security.
Figures of adoption: 900,000 farming households directly supported, ~295,000 ha cultivated with improved seeds, 5,200 ha irrigated rice, 600 km rural roads rehabilitated, 1,600 FFS/demonstration plots, 2 million households indirectly benefiting, +4.1 million tons private sector processing, ~1.68 million tons annual production increase
Profiles of adopters: Smallholder farmers, women farmers (100% of women-headed households in target areas), youth/agripreneurs, internally displaced persons (IDPs) in South Kivu, seed producers, cooperatives, farmer organizations/inter-professional associations, public extension services, local authorities
Lessons learnt: Infrastructure (irrigation, roads) and market access are critical for adoption, seed system reform is a bottleneck, contract farming/aggregation incentivizes adoption, combining inputs + extension + finance accelerates impact, governance and institutional coordination are key for scaling and sustainability

Countries with a green colour: Tested & adopted
Countries with a bright green colour: Adopted
Countries with a yellow colour: Tested
Countries with a blue colour: Testing ongoing

Countries where the technology is being tested or has been tested and adopted
Country	Testing ongoing	Tested	Adopted
Burkina Faso	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Burundi	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Democratic Republic of the Congo	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Gambia	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Ghana	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Kenya	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Malawi	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Mali	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Mozambique	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Niger	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Nigeria	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Rwanda	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Senegal	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Sudan	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Tanzania	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Togo	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Uganda	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Zambia	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted

This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones. Any zones shown in white are not suitable for this technology.

Agro-ecological zones where this technology can be used
AEZ	Subtropic - cool	Tropic - cool
Arid
Semiarid
Subhumid	–	–
Humid	–	–

Source: HarvestChoice/IFPRI 2009

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are applicable to this technology.

Goal 2: zero hunger

By preventing crop losses due to aflatoxin contamination, Aflasafe boosts the productivity of smallholder farmers, supporting food availability and access in rural areas.

Goal 3: good health and well-being

Through the reduction of aflatoxin levels, Aflasafe lowers the incidence of foodborne diseases, improving the health and well-being of communities

Goal 15: life on land

By reducing the need for chemical pesticides, Aflasafe helps protect soil and water ecosystems, reducing pollution and promoting healthier agricultural landscapes.

Aflasafe® should be applied 2-3 weeks before the flowering stage of crops.
It can be spread by hand, using tractor-mounted spinners.
Timely application is crucial to prevent poisonous fungi from establishing.
Farmers must monitor crop growth to determine the flowering stage accurately.
Aflasafe® application should align with rainfall and moist soil for effective establishment of the atoxigenic fungi.
Aflasafe® is more effective when combined with good agricultural, harvest, and postharvest practices.