Harnessing pre- and post-harvest innovations to manage aflatoxins in groundnut production in Ghana

Abstract

Aflatoxins, toxic metabolites produced by certain molds, pose a significant threat to food safety and public health, particularly in agricultural products like groundnuts (Arachis hypogaea L.), impeding the progress of achieving Sustainable Development Goals 1 (no poverty) and 2 (zero hunger). Despite existing awareness and harvest techniques aimed at controlling aflatoxins, the effectiveness of these strategies remains unclear. Thus, little/no evidence to confirm whether these management techniques reduce aflatoxin in groundnut production. This paper assesses the adoption of pre-harvest and post-harvest aflatoxin management practices among 318 simple random groundnut farmers across the agroecological zones of Ghana. We utilized both multivariate probit and truncated regression models to identify the factors influencing adoption and the intensity of adoption of management techniques, respectively. We found that most farmers (92.45%) are aware and have a positive perception on aflatoxin contaminations. Our findings further showed that a wide range of socioeconomic (sex, years of schooling, groundnut farming experience, household size, age), farm-level (farm size, frequency of groundnut cultivation per year, output), and institutional factors (distance to extension services and training in aflatoxin management) significantly influence both the decision and intensity of smallholder farmers' adoption of pre-harvest and post-harvest management techniques. We recommended targeted aflatoxin management training for farmers with lower education and limited access to extension services. Ministry of Food and Agriculture in collaboration with private stakeholders should promote farmer-group collaboration for best practices across all agroecological zones of Ghana.