Lawmakers on Parliament’s Agriculture Committee have raised concern over the increased occurrence of aflatoxins in food produced in Uganda, with many admitting to losing residents in their areas to aflatoxins-induced diseases like liver cirrhosis.
This followed a presentation made by Agnes Kirabo, Executive Director, Food Rights Alliance, where she called for parliamentary increased efforts in ensuring Uganda implements the Aflatoxins Implementation Plan because the rates of aflatoxins in food are increasing amidst challenges of climate change.
Kirabo explained, “We assessed the aflatoxins in terms of the outcomes; the rates are still high, very high, and they are growing higher in the wake of climate change. The farmers can no longer know when it is raining and when it isn’t raining, and this is creating a haven for aflatoxin contamination. Because the times when farmers would dry their grains during the dry period, then all of a sudden the rains happen, and then the harvesting and management of grain becomes a very big burden. So we are seeing the increase whether in maize, sorghum, or other crops.”
Aflatoxins are a family of toxins produced by certain fungi that are found on agricultural crops such as maize (corn), peanuts, cottonseed, and tree nuts.
According to the Food Rights Alliance, although previously the drafters of the Aflatoxins Action Plan didn’t envisage the issues of aflatoxins in school feeding, this is a new emerging phenomenon that calls for Uganda to draw attention to and ensure that the technologies used to test food for these contaminants are readily available to the public.
“Of course, the action plan thought that we would develop technologies. We are saying that just as the rampant pregnancy tests, malaria kits, and things you can easily test, how about if the testing kits become more affordable, more available, and, of course, more credible? Maybe we are going to make informed decisions. But the issue is, the state of aflatoxins contamination is on the rise,” added Kirabo.
Jennifer Driwaru (Maracha DWR) concurred with the warning by the Civil Society team, saying that at the moment, MPs are grappling with a number of health challenges in their districts, adding that Maracha has lost three people within a week to liver complications.
“We are losing people; we buried a 19-year-old yesterday; today we are burying two people, and the cause is the liver. The liver got rotten; the liver got cirrhosis. So as I talk now, in two days, we are burying three people with similar complications,” said Driwaru.
Cirrhosis is scarring (fibrosis) of the liver caused by long-term liver damage. The scar tissue prevents the liver from working properly. Cirrhosis is sometimes called end-stage liver disease because it happens after other stages of damage from conditions that affect the liver, such as hepatitis.
Emmanuel Otaala (West Budama South) called for the need to have the policy implemented, noting, “It is one thing to come up with a very good policy, and I think we should be moving away from the rhetoric that Ugandans are very good at making policies and allow them to gather dust on the shelves. We should reject being part of that rhetoric; rather, we should be the ones pushing for real implementation.”
Racheal Magoola (Bugweri DWR) weighed in, saying, “This thing needs to become like a drum roll; the coordinated efforts between the two ministries, I think we need to push it sooner than later, because there seems to be ignorance about the reality of what is going on in our food. The visibility needs to be immediate for it to take off, in the ears of the National Development Plan, in the ears of people who might improve on the processes of, How do we dry this safely?”
