Gut reaction
Simple steps to improve food safety and sanitation

Food safety and sanitation are as important to human health as increased production and consumption of nutritious foods. The increasing rise of urban and peri-urban horticulture has been accompanied by concerns about heavy-metal or microbial contamination of produce from use of sewage-contaminated water to irrigate crops, or through air pollution from vehicles or industries.

The growing popularity of processed street foods, particularly for the urban poor, brings additional concerns as very few vendors have been trained in basic food hygiene practices. In Accra, Ghana, a study investigated the quality, safety and economics of street-vended foods. Samples of ‘waakye’, a popular Ghanaian dish made from rice and cowpea, were contaminated with lead which inhibits children’s learning ability, a pesticide, chloropyrifos (fatal at high doses, and causes dizziness and confusion at low doses), and heavy metal cadmium (which can cause kidney failure). The Ghanaian authorities are now taking steps to address these issues by helping improve vendor access to clean water, proper disposal of sewage, and regular refuse collection.

Some storage conditions of grain for human consumption or crop residues (stover) for use as livestock feed, can encourage fungal growth, resulting in mycotoxin contamination. Aflatoxins (mycotoxins from the Aspergillus fungus) for example, can cause high mortality in livestock and have been linked to liver cancer, reduced growth rates in children and lowered resistance to diseases. Research has been examining mechanisms to reduce mycotoxin contamination in dairy and livestock products, fish, pulses and in staple food crops consumed by the poor such as maize and cowpea. In India, fish products are highly perishable and vulnerable to heavy losses, particularly during the monsoon season where sun-drying fish is often difficult. The use of simple technologies such as salting tanks and drying racks has helped mitigate this problem.

Solar-drying preserves perishable horticultural produce from contamination for transport over long distances, securing better prices for producers. Solar-drying businesses, run mostly by single women or women’s groups, now operate in Uganda, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Rwanda, Pakistan and Guyana. Small-scale farmer groups supply mangoes, pineapples, mushrooms, bananas, papaya, cayenne peppers and tomatoes. Proceeds have contributed to the construction of water boreholes and small rural health clinics, and help parents pay local school fees and meet health care costs.

Food safety and sanitation, and the methods by which to improve them, must be recognised by policy-makers as significant tools in the prevention of ill health and the subsequent pressure that it places on a country’s health system and economy. Policy-makers should continue, or begin to:

• reduce toxin and pesticide residue levels for indigenous and introduced fruit and vegetables for city-dwellers to ensure access to a safe diet as well as improving the health and income of rural and peri-urban growers and processors
• improve the hygiene of street-vended food by providing vendors with access to clean water, proper means to dispose of sewage, regular refuse collection and access to refrigeration
• encourage more hygienic practice in food production to reduce the dangers of contamination to the consumer.

Development of simple measures to improve post-harvest handling of crops, crop residues and agro-industrial by-products will reduce contamination by mycotoxigenic fungi, thus preventing harm to human and animal health.

Tim Donaldson
Manager, Crop Post-Harvest Programme,
Natural Resources International Ltd.
Park House
Bradbourne Lane
Aylesford
Kent ME20 6SN
UK
t.donaldson@nrint.co.uk

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