Africa: Smartphone App Offers Cheap Aflatoxin Test for Farmers

A smartphone application could offer a cheap way for African farming communities to manage cancer-causing toxins produced by a fungus that grows on crops while building a 'big data' set to assist research on outbreaks.
The Lab-on-Mobile-Device (LMD) platform can detect aflatoxins as accurately as a laboratory test, but can be carried out anywhere at a fraction of the cost using a smartphone camera, according to Donald Cooper of the University of Colorado, United States, who co-founded a company called Mobile Assay to develop the technology.
Field trials of LMD began in five locations in East Africa last September in collaboration with several regional research universities and research institutions, and with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The fungus that produces aflatoxin grows on various crops - such as maize and peanuts - in warm climates. The problem affects a quarter of food crops worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Roughly five billion people in the developing world are likely to be exposed to aflatoxins, according to the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa. The WHO recognises the chemical as a carcinogen.
Efforts to control aflatoxin have been hampered by a lack of adequate diagnostics, says Benoit Gnonlonfin, a food safety researcher working for a research initiative Biosciences eastern and central Africa.
Laboratory tests that can identify the toxin are expensive, costing at least US$15 per test, according to Gnonlonfin, in addition to the challenge of transporting samples from remote areas.
As a result, local regulatory agencies widely use cheaper immunoassay tests, which operate in a similar way to over-the-counter pregnancy tests, for on-location screening. But these can only indicate a positive or negative result via a colour change on test strips or in liquid substrates and so are unable to indicate the level of health threat.
"The immunoassay tests are semi-qualitative techniques and they are not very appropriate for making decisions about whether a batch of food is fit for consumption," he says. "We need more-advanced technologies that are also affordable."
Immunoassay tests are also prone to human error as some require precise timing and because low concentrations of aflatoxin might not trigger an obvious coloured response, according to Cooper. He says that LMD reduces these risks by analysing the shades of the coloured bands on test strips via a digital phone image.
After users photograph the test strip with the smartphone, the app then calculates the pixel density of the coloured band. The result shows how much aflatoxin is present, within a certain threshold, rather than merely giving a simple positive or negative result.
LMD is more sensitive than the human eye, boosting the accuracy of traditional immunoassay tests by a factor of 100, according to Cooper.
Harvesting data
Data from the tests will also be automatically uploaded online to create real-time, open-access maps of aflatoxin outbreaks for research.
"Our goal is to be able to use the big data component of this," says Cooper. He hopes that, once a critical mass of people are using the app in various regions, he will be able to correlate those findings with other information - such as climate data - to build models that predict aflatoxin prevalence.
Gnonlonfin says it would also be helpful to have a risk map.
Each LMD test will cost about US$2-3, although the need to own a smartphone with a camera means Cooper sees LMD not as a tool for every farmer but rather as a more-accurate, on-site test for agricultural co-operatives and regulatory bodies.
Mobile Assay is also developing a prototype low-energy, lightweight ozone decontamination unit to treat infected crops. Cooper says the technology, often used in organic farming in the United States, can neutralise up to 90 per cent of the aflatoxin in a plant.
"You need to be able to couple diagnostics with treatments," says Cooper. "It's one thing to have an easy-to-use and low-cost diagnostic, but then there is the larger question of what to do when you find out that you have a problem. What we're trying to do is answer both questions."
Next week (5 November), The International Food Policy Research Institute will launch a series of 19 policy briefs on managing aflatoxins.
Several briefs examine effective detection and diagnostic technologies, including one on Blue Boxes, portable grain-testing tools that allow for on-the-spot testing of crops at any stage of the supply chain.
"The series provides a good way of bringing together up-to-date information on aflatoxins by experts," said Delia Grace, veterinary epidemiologist at the International Livestock Research Institute, in a story posted on IFPRI's website.

Africa: IFAD Honoured With 2013 Momentum for Change Award for Climate Finance for Smallholder Farmers

Press release

Rome — The International Fund for Agricultural Development's (IFAD's) Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) has won a 2013 Momentum for Change Lighthouse Activities award.
This award recognises IFAD's innovative work in using climate finance to support climate change adaptation activities that deliver social and economic benefits to smallholder farmers.
"We welcome the recognition this award brings IFAD and the donors supporting ASAP," said Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD. "But far more important is the opportunity it creates for us to help raise the profile of smallholder farmers around the issue of climate change."
Through its Momentum for Change initiative, the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat provides a public platform to highlight broad-ranging climate change actions that are already achieving impacts on the ground, in addressing both climate change and wider economic, social and environmental issues.
IFAD's ASAP was launched just over a year ago and will work in more than thirty developing countries to use climate finance to help make rural development programmes more climate-resilient.
These investments will be aimed at a variety of areas including small-scale water-harvesting, providing farmers with improved seeds that are drought-tolerant and helping them access markets. Also the funding will support tree planting on farms and help farmers access weather forecasts so they know when best to plant and harvest crops.
ASAP is a multi-donor programme, funded by the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Canada, Belgium and Sweden.
"Along with all the donors supporting this programme we congratulate the IFAD team for this award," said Lynne Featherstone, Britain's International Development Minister. "By investing in improved practices and technologies, ASAP is helping millions of smallholder farmers across the world to cope with the impacts of climate change."
"This vital work is not only building resilience, it is also safeguarding farmers' jobs and livelihoods, especially those of women, and helping them to lift themselves out of poverty," added Featherstone. "We look forward to other donors joining us and investing in this programme so it can benefit many more smallholder farmers."
ASAP will help 8 million smallholder farmers to expand their options in a rapidly changing climate and in doing so is transforming IFAD's operations. In the year since its launch, IFAD's ASAP has become the largest global financing source dedicated to supporting the adaptation of poor smallholder farmers to climate change.

Africa: Climate Change to Disrupt Soil Nutrients in Drylands

The increased aridity expected this century as a result of climate change may disrupt the balance of key soil nutrients with a knock-on effect on soil fertility threatening livelihoods of more than two billion people, a study finds.
The drop in nitrogen and carbon concentrations that occurs as soils become dryer could have serious effects on ecosystem services such as food production, carbon storage and biodiversity, according to the Nature paper published today.
Loss of nitrogen and carbon, which are the basic building blocks of living organisms, drastically affects land's productivity, says Fernando T. Maestre, a biologist and geologist from King Juan Carlos University, Spain, and a co-author of the report.
"If plant productivity is reduced, the capability of the land to support livestock and crops will be affected and this will have a big impact on people who depend on them," he tells SciDev.Net.
Drylands make up more than 40 per cent of the world's land area, and host a similar proportion of the world's population. Many are expected to get drier because of climate change.
The study measured the nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus content of soil at 224 sites across all continents except Antarctica, which together represent a wide range of soil and vegetation types, climates and species diversity.
As ecosystems became more arid, it found, both nitrogen and carbon concentrations decreased, which may significantly impair plant and microbial activity, with knock-on effects on organic decomposition and plant growth.
Limited nitrogen content could also reduce plants' ability to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds such as sugars through photosynthesis, resulting in even greater climate change, the study says.
Despite a rise in phosphorus levels, plants cannot use this important element, as the enzyme they need to absorb it through their roots is dependent on nitrogen availability.
The study's data suggest that "as global climate change progresses, the ecosystem properties of many drylands could pass a tipping point that will be difficult or impossible to reverse," writes David A. Wardle, a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, in an accompanying comment piece in Nature.
He adds: "Reduced soil carbon and nitrogen may impair the supply of nutrients from the soil and therefore the productivity of crops and livestock, with potentially dire consequences for many of the more than two billion people who inhabit dryland regions."

Africa: Farmers Could Cut Emissions While Boosting Production

Farmers could earn more and protect the environment by using technologies and practices that reduce the global warming gases that livestock emit, according to a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The report's five case studies suggest that the potential for mitigation is greatest among low-productivity ruminant producers in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.
It found that raising livestock such as pigs, cattle and poultry generates climate-altering gases with an impact equivalent to 7.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, representing 14.5 per cent of all human-caused greenhouse gas (GHC) emissions.
The challenge, says the report (published 26 September), is reducing emissions while meeting the soaring demand for livestock products - a demand that is projected to rise by more than 70 per cent between 2005 and 2050.
Only 10 per cent of producers currently use technologies which could, if taken up more widely, cut the emissions from all livestock species by up to 30 per cent while boosting production, too.
"These efficiency gains can be achieved by improving practices and don't necessitate changing production systems," says Ren Wang, the FAO's assistant director-general for agriculture and consumer protection.
Currently, the majority of the livestock sector's emissions originate from cattle, with beef production contributing 41 per cent and cattle milk production contributing 20 per cent.
In terms of activities, the worst culprit is feed production and processing, which accounts for 45 per cent of emissions from livestock-related practices. This is followed by manure storage and processing, which is responsible for ten per cent of these emissions.

Improved feeds
In the case of ruminants, such as cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats, the report finds that using better quality feeds would lower the amount of methane they emit during digestion as well as the quantity of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide released by their decomposing manure.
Also, by improving the breeding and health of their animals, producers could get the same returns from fewer but more productive animals, it says.
Other emission-mitigating practices mentioned by the report include: better management of grazing land; recovering and recycling nutrients and energy contained in manure; and using less energy along the livestock production chain, for example in transport, feed production and to process animal products.
Governments should offer incentives that prompt farmers to invest in the most environmentally friendly technologies, the report says. And they should provide farmers with information about, access to and training on good practices and technologies, it adds.

Opportunity for reductions
Michael Blummel, a researcher at the International Livestock Research Institute at Hyderabad, India, says that Indian dairy farmers could reduce methane emissions by about a million tonnes a year if they could boost the amount of milk that each cow produced from an average of four kilograms to six kilograms a day.
This would enable the farmers to obtain the same amount of milk from fewer animals, he tells SciDev.Net, adding that institutional support, for example, access to affordable improved animals, would be needed.
James Kinyangi, who leads CGIAR's climate change, agriculture and food security research programme in east Africa, tells SciDev.Net that methods of intensifying sustainable livestock production on the continent vary by region.
"For example, in West Africa [lower] emissions could come from better grazing management and better utilisation of feed and fodder from crop residues. But in East Africa, the use of feed and fodder could be improved by using farm wastes and grain milling products."
South American cuts
In the case of Latin America, Roberto Díaz, a researcher at Uruguay's National Agricultural Research Institute sees an opportunity to lower cattle-generated emissions in South America's Southern Cone, which comprises Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, especially on medium and large farms owned by large businesses.
"Cattle fattening and milk production in our region have already been upgraded, so, for us, the accent must be put on improving cattle breeding, which probably has the highest relative emissions and is confined to the worst soils and least-productive areas," he tells SciDev.Net.
He questions the FAO's contention that livestock emissions can be reduced without requiring changes to production systems.
"This assertion applies to simple technologies such as sanitary controls for improving animal feeds, but in our region we need to improve grazing lands that have been degraded through soy production and by turning forested lands into subtropical prairies. This requires a new approach by integrating agriculture and cattle technologies," he adds.
Díaz adds that the wider adoption of best practice technologies in feeding, health and husbandry, and manure management that the FAO report proposes will succeed if they increase productivity, because it will also stimulate the private sector to take up the suggestions.