Roundtable of aflatoxin experts

25th January 2016. Roundtable of aflatoxin experts on “Building a multi-stakeholder approach to mitigate aflatoxin contamination of food and feed”.

PAEPARD organized with the support of the Directorate General Santé of the European Commission and the East African Farmer Federation (EAFF), and in collaboration with the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA) and the African Society of Mycotoxicology (ASM), a roundtable meeting of key aflatoxin experts (not only research experts) on the mitigation of aflatoxin in food and feed in Africa on Monday 25/01/2015 in Brussels (by invitation only).

SEE THE FULL REPORT OF THIS MEETING:
Strategies to mitigate aflatoxin final250316.pdf

Some 40 experts participated in this meeting originating from (in alphabetic order: Austria, Belgium, Benin, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Nigeria, Norway, Serbia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, United Kingdom , United States, Zimbabwe). The meeting involved private sector actors, non-governmental organisations, research institutes and EC policy makers (DG Sante and DG Agriculture).

The video-on-demand will be available via the same link for 2 years (after which it will be automatically deleted).400 persons followed the web stream. Average watching time 24:21
https://scic.ec.europa.eu/streaming/management-of-aflatoxins-in-africa-working-group-implementing-legislation

The pictures of the meeting are available here

The Round Table was a follow up to the PAEPARD policy brief on the aflatoxin contamination of food and feed in Africa presented during the DEVCo Info Lunch conference in Brussels on 26th October 2015.

• Date: Monday 25th January 2016: 9h30-17h30
• Venue: Albert Borschette Conference Center
  (36 rue Froissart, Metro station “Schuman” lines 1 and 5)
• Meeting Room: 5b 
• Meeting title: Management of Aflatoxin in Africa: working group on aflatoxin
• Organiser: PAEPARD

The objectives of the Roundtable meeting were:

• Assessing the real needs of Africa, expressed by various stakeholders.
• Assessing the current expertise from African and European organisations on aflatoxin issues relevant to Africa, and identify new research and ICT (Information and communication technology) collaboration on aflatoxin mitigation between Africa and Europe and synergies with ongoing or future aflatoxin research in Africa (China, USA, Germany …). 1
• Linking together the most competent partners around the funding and knowledge bases for implementing aflatoxin contamination mitigation on a large scale in Africa.

The format of this meeting included a morning session with presentations and discussions. The afternoon session will be organized in three consecutive panels on pre-harvest mitigation, post-harvest technologies, and education and awareness creation. The third and last session will discuss upcoming funding opportunities and an action plan for the way forward.

9:30    Welcoming by DG Sante

Frans Verstraete

Welcoming by PAEPARD and EAFF
Stephen Muchiri, EAFF, the Chairperson of the morning session

Remi Kahane, PAEPARD

Keynote speaker

Comments on the PAEPARD policy note: "The role of multi-stakeholder partnerships between Africa and Europe exemplified by the issue of aflatoxin contamination of food and feed"

Dr. Habiba Wassef, Bio-NCP Egypt (H2020 National Contact Point), nutritionist and senior reviewer FP5, FP6, FP7 and Horizon 2020.

Session 1: Lessons
10:00  The role of the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA)

           Amare Ayelew , Program Manager, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

10:30  Improving Food Safety in Africa
Brad Flett - Agricultural Research Council - Grain Crops Institute, Potchefstroom, Republic of South Africa. President of the African Society of Mycotoxicology

11:00  Twenty years research on aflatoxin in Europe: what benefits for Africa?

Antonio Logrieco, Istituto Scienze delle Produzioni Alimentari (ISPA), Bari, Italy

(coordinator of the Mycokey project under H2020- SFS-13-2015 call on Biological contamination of crops and the food chain: A contribution to a long-term collaboration with China on food safety).

11:30   The impact of hand shelling in Malawi

Andrew Emmott, Twin&Twin Trading, Senior Associate (Nuts), London, UK.

12:00  Respondents: Below experts will react to the presentations in a panel discussion. The

PPTs below will not be presented but serve as background for the participants

Sarah De Saeger (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ghent University) The expertise of Mycotox at the laboratory of Food Analysis

Monica Olsen (National Food Agency of Sweden) Risk Benefit Assessment 

Monique Denijs (WUR, The Netherlands) Wageningen ur approach to aflatoxin

Catherine Brabet (CIRAD, France) Expertise of CIRAD-UMR Qualisud for aflatoxin control in Africa

Ferenc Bagi, University of Novi Sad, Serbia (member of the MyToolBox project under H2020- SFS-13-2015 call as well). Experiences about aflatoxins in Serbia: what could be relevant for Africa?

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch break and networking (self-service cafeteria, same floor of the building)

Session 2: Actions

14:00  Chair person: Lynn Brown (Global Donor Platform for Rural Development)

Panel discussions: Presentations in 3 consecutive panels (pitching type of panel without slide show).

14:15  Panel discussion on pre-harvest mitigation:

Limbikani Matumba (LUNUAR, Malawi) Stemming Aflatoxin pre- and post-harvestwaste in the groundnut value chain 

Benoit Gnonlonfin (INRAB, Benin) Crops drying to a safe moisture content and handling: challenges facingAfrican countries.

Bruno Schuler (GIZ Germany) African Cashew initiative + Prevention and control of aflatoxin contamination in value chains: Contribution of GIZ

Prevention and control of aflatoxin contamination in value chains : Contribution of GIZ from Francois Stepman

15:00  Panel discussion on post-harvest technologies:

Charles Nkonge (Kenya) Highlights of maize aflatoxin research in Kenya

Erastus Kang'ethe (EAFF) on Aflatoxin in milk

Loveness K. Nyanga (University of Zimbabwe/Action contre la faim) Postharvest management technologies for reducingaflatoxin contamination in maize grain and exposure to humans in Zimbabwe

Sophie Walker (ACDI/VOCA) AflaSTOP: Storage and drying for aflatoxin prevention project

15:45  Panel discussion on Education and awareness creation:

Paul Van Mele (Agro Insight) Quality training videos to be developed withfarmers who are trained in aflatoxin prevention and management 

Bruno Tran (NRI, UK) African postharvest losses information system (APHLIS)

Kouadio James (University Félix Houphouet-Boigny, Abidjan - Côte d’Ivoire) Toxicologie et hygiène alimentaire (title tbc)

Daniel Gad (Exporter and entrepreneur in horticulture - Ethiopia) The importance of consumer awareness on the risks of aflatoxin contamination

Hailemichael Desmae Management of aflatoxin contamination in groundnut – ICRISAT Approach (International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics -West & Central Africa, Bamako, Mali)

Session 3: Funding

16:30   Panel discussion on Funding opportunities:

       Marc Duponcel (DG Agriculture H5) H2020 priority setting, themes and the current selection process (cfr. multi stakeholder consortia)

Francois Stepman (PAEPARD) The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions and the Apps4aflatoxin H2020 proposal

Wolfgang Buechs (Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants - Julius-Kuehn-Institute) AflaNET project: Minimization of aflatoxin contamination in the value chain

17:00 Recommendations and action plan: the recommendations and commitments to an action plan from this meeting will be presented during the panel session 3 of the ARCH Pre-event (on 26/01) to the DG-AGRI Agricultural Research and Innovation Conference (on 27-28/01).

17:45 - 18:00       Conclusion and closure of the Roundtable meeting.

PPT business cards

Ida Skaar (Norwegian Veterinary Institute Section of Mycology) NVI`s interests and available expertise

Bruno Schuler (GIZ Germany) Rapid Loss Appraisal Tool (RLAT)

Tina Ajdic and Aida Axelsson-Bakri (ADS Brussels) ADS Insight & aflatoxins

Gennadiy Shulga (Agricultural Services, Global Business Development, SGS Group Management Ltd, Geneva) SGS monitoring program for mycotoxins

Resources:

• Full report of the meeting: Recommendations and action plan to mitigate aflatoxin contamination of food and feed. Synthesis of a dialog between policy makers, scientists and research users at the Roundtable of aflatoxin experts, Brussels, Monday 25th January 2016
  Brad Flett, Limbikani Matumba, Andrew Emmott, Stephen Muchiri and Francois Stepman, March 2016, 37 pages
• Programme (3 pages)
• Background note (11 pages)
• List of participants (2 pages) 
• PAEPARD P O L I C Y B R I E F N °1 The role of multi-stakeholder partnerships between Africa and Europe exemplified by the issue of aflatoxin contamination of food and feed.
October 2015 (8 pages)
• CTA aflatoxin poster

Related PAEPARD blog posts on aflatoxin
See: http://paepard.blogspot.be/search/label/Aflatoxin (61 blog posts)