The Ghana Standard Authority has disclosed that some agricultural exports from Ghana are getting banned from the international market due to the presence of Aflatoxins.
Aflatoxins in some Ghanaian products were identified when Ghana Standard Authority toured some parts of the country to sensitize and educate farmers on Aflatoxins.
Speaking on an Accra Based radio station, the project coordinator for the National Aflatoxin Sensitization and Management Project, of the Ghana Standard Authority, George Kojo Anti said if much attention is not given, its repercussions could be dire.
“Alerts we have had probably since the beginning of the year and last year is that an outright ban is issued to [prevent such products] from entering the EU market. It’s happened to Ghana with regard to certain products. And if we keep going the way we are going, we are going to have serious problems. If we don’t pay attention to standards to the projects (1D1F) that we have from the government trying to diversify our exports, we are going to have a very big problem.”
ALSO READ: Ghana Export Promotion Authority targets USD 2.8 billion from Coconut export
According to the Ghana Standard Authority, this is not the first time the Authority has raised concerns about the level of aflatoxins in the country’s food commodities. It argues that the situation has a tendency to affect the government’s flagship initiatives on agriculture.
It added that, the majority of diseases and cancers surfacing in our health sector can be attributed to aflatoxins which have infested our food commodities.
Aflatoxins are poisonous carcinogens and mycotoxins mainly found in commodities such as maize, groundnut, chilli pepper, rice and are not visible to the eye. They are however very poisonous and can cause a number of diseases such as cancers, organ failure and coma.
