As the food-safety dialogue continues to gain ground globally as everyone’s business, our steadfast message then as now is that aflatoxin control is indeed a matter for everyone
In all parts of the planet, food safety and aflatoxin control continue to hit the headlines, breaking out of the agriculture and science niche to splash across business, finance and health sections – just the areas where aflatoxin hits us hardest.
Here in our corner of the world, Africa, there are plenty of examples in our press cuttings reflecting media coverage from across the continent – with especially strong showings in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda in the April–June quarter.
This worldwide rising buzz and pulsating energy around food safety was boosted even further by the first ever World Food Safety Day, observed on 7th June, with the theme Food Safety, everyone’s business.
Nothing could be closer to our hearts and more in harmony with our message on aflatoxin, as we busy bees at ATTC beaver away to build awareness and advance the food-safety agenda.
Since 2017 and earlier – at the IITA-hosted Symposium on Safeguarding Africa’s food – we’ve argued that each and every one of us should care about aflatoxin because we are all food consumers. That’s a steadfast message we’ve returned to time and again, for example at the 2018 official launch of Aflasafe GH02 whose theme was Aflatoxin control: whose responsibility?, concluding that aflatoxin control is everybody’s concern.
Ghana has heeded the call, and risen to the challenge. The country has witnessed a meteoric rise in media coverage as the National Aflatoxin Sensitisation and Management (NASAM) project hots up. With the continued constant media coverage on aflatoxin, our anticipation is that NASAM’s impact can only grow stronger, and we can’t wait to read, see and hear what comes next as NASAM strives to make a ringing and lasting mark on aflatoxin awareness in Ghana. Potentially, there’s much to learn from this initiative as Ghana gets it right, beating a big drum on aflatoxin, and we hope the positive lessons learnt will be replicated in other countries too. The drums and drumsticks are firmly in Ghanaian hands, with the NASAM initiative owned and driven by Ghanaian organisations, to which we’re privileged to be adding our voice and lending support. Check out these particularly fascinating pieces in Business Insider and Modern Ghana.
Over on our website, to further enrich your reading experience, we continue adding new sections and content to our country pages, so keep checking back on where we are in your country of interest. And to enhance your reading pleasure, we have diversified your experience by recasting some of our most interesting news stories. We are very pleased to present the first of our portable and print-friendly PDFs. And what better place to start than right at the top with our royal Aflasafe ambassadors in Burkina Faso? As we add more PDFs, you’ll be able to find these on selected news stories and relevant country pages – and this one for Burkina Faso for example appears on our fairly new en français page too!
Finally, if you haven’t already, we earnestly urge you to join the movement for safer food in Africa, and encourage others to also do so. For indeed, food safety is everybody’s business!
