This article was supported by CABI.
Innovation and policy reform can improve food safety as Africa eyes trade expansion, writes Kelly Rwampera.
[KIGALI] As Africa embarks on a new era of trade relations, its ability to meet international food safety standards will be crucial, say agri-trade experts.
The African Continental Free Trade Area is the largest free trade bloc in the world by area and number of countries, with the potential to lift 50 million people out of extreme poverty, according to the World Bank.
With 54 countries participating, it will bring together a market of 1.3 billion people with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of US$3.4 trillion.
But for this potential to be met, barriers to trade will have to be overcome and food safety standards will be paramount, say specialists.
“With agri-food commodities accounting for more than 70 per cent of intra-regional trade, aligning and meeting food safety standards by low and middle-income [countries] will be critical..,” said Benoit Gnonlonfin, sanitary and phytosanitary global programme lead for the agricultural research organisation CABI (the parent organisation of SciDev.Net).
Gnonlonfin was addressing delegates at an event discussing innovation in safe trade at the Africa Food Systems Forum meeting in Kigali last week (2 September).
“The need to strengthen [food health and safety] capacities at national and regional levels … has never been more pertinent,” he told the meeting, pointing to projections that Africa’s population will rise to 2.5 billion by 2050.
CABI and partners are bringing together interventions in food safety to protect the health of consumers, plants and animals, Gnonlonfin explained in an interview with SciDev.Net on the sidelines of the event.
“We’re having a lot of demand for safe food by consumer associations globally, increasing every year,” he said. “People are not just looking for food, they are looking for safe food.”
As an inter-governmental non-profit organisation, CABI works with all actors along the food value chain, including governments, agro-dealers, farmers and food processors, according to Gnonlonfin.
“Food safety is a very complex situation,” he explained. “It needs coming together … so that each partner knows what to do to achieve the goal.”
Unsafe food costs low- and middle-income economies US$110 billion a year in lost productivity and medical expenses, according to the World Bank, with Africa accounting for a large proportion of that.
Toxins such as pesticide residues are a major source of contamination, along with poor hygiene practices.
Diana Akullo Ogwal, principal officer for sanitary and phytosanitary measures at the African Continental Free Trade Area organisation, reiterated the need for national, regional and international policies to improve food safety, especially in Africa.
“It is central to have policies and practices at national and regional levels that are in line with the international standards of safe food maintenance,” she said during a panel discussion at the safe trade event.
She explained that good standards and practices in trade can be instrumental in determining the safety level of food, stressing the need for channels that take food safely from producer to consumer.
Up to now, food safety has mostly been driven by continent-wide trade considerations, rather than by domestic foods and markets, said Ogwal.
“There is a clear need to address African food safety governance and capacity and work on prevention and surveillance systems,” she added.
“While there is demonstrated political will, African countries face several challenges such as inadequate or non-existent infrastructure, capacity, and laboratories, and weak coordination mechanisms to modernize national food control systems and to mainstream the food safety culture.”
This non-compliance with food safety requirements, she believes, has led to lost opportunities in food trade gains in Africa, and now requires “a paradigm shift in approaches to regulation and management of food safety by governments”.
Intra-African food demand is projected to increase by 178 per cent by 2050, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, driven by population and income growth and urbanization. This will see Africa’s food import bill soar unless action is taken to increase food production.
Pesticide contamination
To meet this demand, farmers in Africa are increasingly turning to pesticides to fend off destructive crop pests. This has led to serious concerns about the effects on human health and the environment, including from the handling of harmful substances and residue left on agricultural produce.
In efforts to address this, CABI is contributing to a US$37-million agricultural programme aimed at reducing the use of pesticides and plastics in agricultural production.
It is also supporting the development of a national pesticide residue monitoring framework for Kenya through its global PlantwisePlus programme, to reduce the use of banned or illegal pesticides and reduce food contamination.
“That’s one of our pesticide risk-reduction interventions,” said Gnonlonfin.
“We encourage the creation of alternatives to promote low-risk pesticides [and] use of biopesticides made of plant products,” he added.
Through the PlantwisePlus programme, farmers can receive information about how much pesticide to use and the right time to spray it, as well as help detecting pesticide residue levels on crops.
Health burden
Most people in Africa source their food from domestic informal food markets where there is minimal application and compliance with food safety standards, increasing risks of exposure to unsafe foods, according to the panel.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says one in ten people worldwide falls ill from contaminated food each year, and over 200 diseases are caused by eating contaminated food. There are around 420,000 deaths a year from foodborne diseases, with a third of these occurring in Africa.
Children under five carry 40 per cent of the foodborne disease burden, being at a higher risk of malnutrition and mortality due to unsafe food, according to the WHO. It says these illnesses and deaths are preventable if food safety is prioritised.
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In 2004, WHO launched the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) to coordinate measures to improve food safety around the world and speed up the sharing of information about food safety.
Aside from pesticides, aflatoxins are a major concern when it comes to food contamination.
The cancer-causing toxins, produced by fungi, are the leading contaminator of maize and groundnuts, says Gnonlonfin. He says the lack of technology to detect and quantify aflatoxin levels in agricultural products has aggravated the situation.
“Aflatoxin toxicity reduces the nutrient value of foods,” explained Gnonlonfin. “Children are mainly the victims of such nutrient-deficient foods.
“Aflatoxins threaten the WHO and Africa’s goal to defeat malnutrition.”
Heavy metals
The selling of food along roadsides in Africa and Asia and transportation of produce also has potential health risks, including contamination with heavy metals, he added.
In Ghana, blockchain technology has been used to improve traceability and transparency in the food chain and minimise the challenge of unsafe food, and fraud associated with it, on the African market, by offering a robust method to trace food.
“Ghana’s cocoa industry reduced incidents of fraud by 30 per cent and increased farmers’ incomes by 15 per cent,” said Ogwal, referring to the smuggling of produce that doesn’t comply with export regulations.
When TradeMark Africa, a non-profit that aims to grow prosperity through trade, applied blockchain solution in Kenya’s avocado export sector, they realised a 25 per cent reduction in rejected shipments to the EU, Ogwal added.
This article is supported by CABI. CABI is an international not-for-profit organization that solves problems in agriculture and the environment by conducting scientific research, delivering development programmes, and publishing information and tools.
This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.