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Ahh greetings farmers
Today i would like us to talk about aflatoxin poison
aflatoxin is a a poison produced by fungi or dono
When it grows in maize, rice
wheat, sorghum, millet
finger millet and when it grows there it produces this poison called aflatoxin
aflatoxin is a poison/toxin that can kill, if you eat alot of it
you can die because it goes and affects the liver and the liver fails to function
secondly aflatoxin contributes to the possibility of getting cancer if you
consume in bits but not enough to kill you in normal lifetime
and that does not bring liver cancer only but stomach and other body organs cancer
thirdly aflatoxin lowers the body immunity
and when immunity goes down you exhibit vulnerability to disease when there is an outbreak
when there is an out break you contract the diseases easily and quickly
4th it can affect the development of a baby during pregnancy
the normal formation can change
the baby can be born without some body organs
or with abnormal limbs and organs
and also they can lack vital body organs that enables then to live a normal life
Aflatoxin also has a lot of harmful effects on animals
They don't die easily and quickly e.g cows, goats, sheep and the like
because it takes a lot of toxins to kill them.
but for animals like dogs, chicken, turkey they
get affected and die quickly
for eating feed with aflatoxin
also in growth and development they don't mature as they are supposed
to so if its a calf it doesn't grow nicely, if its chicks
they don't grow nicely to reach the market age maturity as they are supposed to
so you continue using more money and incur losses
cows consuming a lot of aflatoxins most of the time reduce their milk production
and researchers have found that they reduce production by 35%
so if we compare in our country for instance lets say now
our country produces approximately 5billion litres
you find that if all our cows consume aflatoxin we loose
1.6 billion litres of milk every year
and thats a lot of milk considering the income we get from milk
so aflatoxin brings losses to people and animals and also
government incurs uncalculated losses which we dont know how much
because treatment is expensive and medical reports are telling us
that cancer is the number 1 killer disease than AIDS
and Malaria in our country
so its like now we know there is presence of a lot of aflatoxin in our country
here and there and so we are not sure how much its contributing to the cancer cases in our country
hospitals in children, middle aged, adults and old people
so we must consider ourselves and know what measures to take
the report we have here now is that after doing research
in Makueni and Nandi what we found out is that
people have no information about how aflatoxin reaches them
most only know that if you eat maize that aflatoxin producing fungi has grown on it you thats when you get poisoned
that's good on one had but they don't know they other ways that
its can reach them because most people told us
that the rotten maize or the one infected with fungi or dono
they use it as cow feed
that means they dont know
if a cow eats that maize feed
they can transmit the aflatoxins to the person
from its milk
and that shows we only know one way
also chicken can transmit aflatoxin through the eggs
so people dont know they many way that are there
of how aflatoxin poison can reach us
so there is a big need for government ministries ed Africulture
Livestock and public health
to educate people on how the poison of aflatoxin can get to them
and to be able to prevent it if they would
also we researched if its possible for people to identify maize infected with aflatoxin
or it has fungi that can produce aflatoxin
and what we have noticed is that women have that capability
because 70% in Makueni and Nandi region
were able to identify the colour shades which had fundi growing on maize
and if it can, has or will produce aflatoxins they were able to identify the maize
and if we can emphasiza people to sort maize before going to cook it
or grind it will be very important because you will have gotten rid of the maize with a lot of aflatoxins
from the rotten bad maize
and its not a must that the bad maize is the one that has fungi or mold
there are others with the poison but seems to look good so
its not that we have sorted all but its a way to reduce the poison
another thing we have noticed here is that maize
has a lot of the toxins. From our research
in Makueni and Nandi the poison level is 60-70% in all the maize
we found in 261 household in both regions
had aflatoxin poison but the place we
found poisons to be above government regulated level
of 10 parts per bail is in Makueni region we dint find that in
Nandi it was lower but in Makueni we found a lot of it
lets say 60% of the maize from the households and
the market it had aflatoxins exceeding 10parts per biley
that means people living in Makueni region are eating maize with excessive aflatoxins
and this because of their lack of know how or other food production methods
we also observed that the available cow mik
they one they have produced themselves or the one they have bought from the shop
and also goat milk had aflatoxin
and the other one came from cow feed when they fed on its they produced milk with aflatoxin
and not many knew that its also dangerous in this way
because we asked them, a cow that has eaten this maize
that has aflatoxin it there any harmful effects you can get if you drink
that milk, others said they don't see
so they dont know that's another way the toxins can reach them
and the milk we found, 70% of the milk
in 70% of the households of the milk in the households had aflatoxins
we did not stop there we went ahead
we noticed the households we passed through they had breastfeeding mothers
children below about 6-7 months
we asked them please give us your breast milk we go sample it and see
if there is a possibility of this poison reaching children from
your breast milk and the shocking this was
80% of all the households
their milk had aflatoxin in some households 93%
94% but on average 80% comparing Makueni and Nandi
if you go in there and see breastfeeding mothers and sample their breastmilk
you will find that it has aflatoxin poison
we went and sampled children urine
to determine if the toxins were present or not or if some of the food they were fed was good
we found out that 90% of all the children
in Makueni and Nandi had aflatoxin in their urine, that means
that the small children that our society depends on tomorrow and the day after
are fed with toxins since they are small until they are adults
and that's the danger we want people to see
that the toxins they are consuming is not a lot and it wont kill them for now
but it will bring harmful effects little by little like the ones we mentioned of cancer and others that we don't know
and it will be very costly to the government when all this effects surface or emerge
to the ministry of health, to the country and economic growth will be very difficult
so there is a need for us to take responsibility and ensure that we have prevented that
another thing that we found to contribute to the presence of this poison in
both regions is that the fungi in Makueni and in Nandi
in Nandi they have a fungi that produces a stronger fungi than the one in Makueni
but what surprised us is that
the one in Nandi does not produce a lot of toxins than the one in Makueni
the one in Makueni produces two times more fungi than the one in Nandi
and that shows when the environment is good
in Nandi for growth of fungi it can be very dangerous
because Nandi, Trans-Nzoia ans Uasin Gishu
that's where we produce most of the maize in our country
and there is a danger because the environment is changing
climate change is setting in and we have started seeing the dangers of climate change
and if it sets in and sets a good climate for fungi to produce toxins
in Nandi, Trans-Nzoia and Uasin-Gishu
that will be a danger to our country because all the maize we eat comes from that region
and it will have aflatoxins and we will be spreading the poison in every corner of this country
so there is a looming danger and therefore the government must take
together with the ministries policies and projects in place to avoid that disaster from happening
by educating the public and showing them how to farm so that we can prevent
the toxins from entering and affecting people
Thank you very much.
Transcribed by Daniel W Wangara.