Publication: Influence of socio‐economic and agronomic factors on aflatoxin and fumonisin contamination of maize in western Kenya
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2019-05-08
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DAAD- Icipe
Publisher
Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Abstract
Consumption of maize contaminated with mycotoxins has been associated with detrimental health effects. A farm survey covering 116 push‐pull and 139 non‐push‐pull
cropping systems was conducted to determine the socio‐economic and agronomic
factors that influence farmers’ knowledge on incidence and contamination of maize
by ear rots and associated mycotoxins in western Kenya. All the respondents were
smallholder farmers between the ages of 23 and 80 years, with 50% of them being
female. Maize samples were collected from the standing crop in the field of each
interviewed farmer and analyzed for aflatoxin and fumonisin. Only a small proportion
of farmers had knowledge of aflatoxin and ear rots in maize. Overall, less than 20% of
maize samples were contaminated with both aflatoxin and fumonisin, and more maize
samples were contaminated with fumonisin as compared to aflatoxin. Proportions of
maize samples containing higher than the acceptable Kenyan regulatory threshold
(10 µg/kg) for aflatoxin and European Commission regulatory threshold (1,000) µg/
kg for fumonisin were lower in maize samples from push‐pull cropping system. Age
of farmer and county of residence were significantly and positively associated with
knowledge of aflatoxin, while cropping system, county of residence, and level of education were positively associated with knowledge of maize ear rots. There was strong
correlation between knowledge of maize ear rots and knowledge of aflatoxin. Levels
of both aflatoxin and fumonisin were significantly and positively associated with the
use of diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertilizer at planting. Aflatoxin levels were also
positively associated with stemborer damage. Agronomic practices were not significantly different between push‐pull and non‐push‐pull farmers. However, use of DAP
fertilizer was the most important agronomic factor since it was associated with both
aflatoxin and fumonisin contamination of maize. These results imply that creating
awareness is key to mitigation of ear rots and mycotoxin contamination of maize.
The results also suggest that the levels of aflatoxin and fumonisin in maize in western
Kenya were influenced both by pre‐harvest agronomic practices and by the cropping
system adopted, push‐pull or not.
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Keywords
agronomic practices, management, mycotoxins, push‐pull, Zea mays