Our Research

Improving food security & food safety in developing countries.

The worldwide occurrence of mycotoxins in food and feed has been recognized by the FAO and WHO for many years. The FAO estimates that more than 25% of the agricultural produce is contaminated by mycotoxins. In terms of exposure of chronic disease mycotoxins appear to pose a higher risk than anthropogenic contaminants. In northern Uganda, 90% of the food grains stored in households were contaminated with mycotoxin; 20% of food samples exceed EU maximum tolerance limits for aflatoxins and/or fumonisins. My lab has been contributing to improve food security and - safety in northern Uganda by introducing more productive and sustainable agricultural methods that may allow local farmers to improve crop yield in a quantitative and qualitative way and to reduce mycotoxin contaminations,