Plant protection product trials: helping small-scale SADC farmers meet food safety standards: quick guide

What we do

There are a number of plant protection products that farmers can use to help them meet food safety standards. However, before any product can be used in the production process it must be shown to be both effective and safe under local conditions in order to be registered. Product trials can be expensive and unless input suppliers are convinced that the size of the market justifies the expense, they are reluctant to make this investment.

Afla-guard® is one such product and the aim of this initiative is to demonstrate that Afla-guard® is effective in limiting or preventing the formation of aflatoxin on groundnuts during production under Southern Africa conditions.

Why this intervention

Demonstration that Afla-guard® is effective and that the risk of aflatoxin formation could be minimised, together with initiatives to increase access to markets and technology, would mean that peanut production could play an increasing role in Southern African agricultural production, especially for small-scale producers in areas with marginal rainfall. Solving or controlling the aflatoxin problem will increase access to markets by
SADC small-scale producers, in particular when more rigorous aflatoxin regulations are introduced.

What we achieve

Field trials are under way and these results will support the registration and early commercial availability of Afla-guard® to Southern Africa producers and could support efforts to register and market it in Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

How is this sustainable

This project will demonstrate that the Southern African input-supply market is sufficiently large enough to justify the investment in product registration. This will improve the availability of products aimed at helping farmers meet international standards.

Who we work with

Afla-Guard

Afla-GuardTM is a product registered in the US as a biological soil treatment for agricultural use, effective in reducing or controlling the formation of aflatoxin in peanuts. The owner of the rights to Afla-guard® is Circle One Global, which is also involved in very promising research work with Afla-guard® on other crops such as maize. In South Africa, Afla-Guard is marketed by a start-up company, AGCP. ComMark funding via the RSP enables producers in the SADC region to benefit from this technology by providing the resources to enable Afla-guard to register in Southern Africa.