How IITA rescued Africa from cancer in crops

Kenyan-born Dr. Lawrence Kaptoge, General Technical Manager, Aflasafe Planthad of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture  (IITA) had said matter-of-factly: IITA saved Nigeria, indeed Africa, from a cancer epidemic resulting from her crops. As he sat on his desk inside a city of crops and agricultural technological innovations on the outskirts of the former capital of Nigeria’s Western Region that morning, a cup of coffee playing by his front, Lawrence reeled into and regale his guests with statistics of the IITA African interventions.

All of a sudden, he fiddled with his huge computer and tapped some buttons. Right there on the screen was the lost glory of Africa. A huge mound of groundnuts called the Pyramid stared at us all who gathered in the office in the face. As at 1970, he said, Nigeria was exporting 291,000 tonnes of groundnuts to Europe and America but 43 years after, precisely in 2013, this had reduced considerably to 1,193 tonnes, a total decrease of 99.59 per cent. “Did I hear you ask me why?” he began, a very wry smile suddenly jumping to his face. “Among other factors, a fungus which infects the crops and which is highly carcinogenetic called Aflatoxicosis is the culprit.”

Aflatoxin, according to IITA, is a “carcinogenic toxin that has serious negative consequences on health, trade, and food security. (It) is mainly produced by a fungus scientifically known as Aspergillus flavus. However, not all strains of the fungus produce the toxins. The bio-control technology is made up of strains of the non-toxic fungus, which when introduced into the fields, outcompete and reduce the population of the toxic ones, therefore drastically reducing contamination.” Breaking this technology into its simplest understandable term, Kaptoge said that the fungus of Aflatoxicosis, which has had decades of existence in the world, is of two variants – the destructive fungus and the friendly ones. So what the invention did was to develop the friendly fungus to fight the destructive ones.

As a result of this fungus, said Kaptoge, crop produce could no longer be exported to Europe. Health of consumers of crops infected by the fungus became highly in jeopardy. For instance, he said, in Kenya in 2014, an outbreak of aflatoxicosis happened and out of the 317 cases reported, over 100 people died. The task now fell on IITA as a major research institute in Africa to save the continent from this fungus which threatened to wipe it off and draw her backwards still. IITA’s researchers also further found out that, aflatoxicosis is so powerful that it contaminates milk produced from animals.

Researches pointed in one direction: the United States Development Agency (USDA) which had earlier achieved the feat in America with a technology which had succeeded in defeating the fungus incubated. However, it was very expensive and would certainly be unimaginably discomforting to bring that drug down to Africa. In fact, those who offered to replicate the American technology in Africa demanded the sum of $5million to do so. Director General of the institute, Dr. Nterenya Sanginga thus embarked on what looked like a revolution to conquer aflatoxicosis. After series of meetings and correspondence, IITA thus decided to partner with the United States Development Agency (USDA) to domesticate the technology. Nterenya got Bill Gates to fund the building of the facility and technology that is adaptable to sub-Saharan Africa.

The process of building the infrastructure thus began. According to Richard, it was a very laborious process but Nterenya stuck to his guns that it was doable. From an old ramshackle building he inherited when he became the DG in 2011, work began on domesticating the technology. A building that is modern outright was put up, complete with its technology. The drug to combat the Aflatoxicosis was eventually successfully incubated and Sanginga and his team named it Aflasafe. Developed by IITA scientists Dr. Ranajit Bandyopadhyay and Dr. Leena Tripathi, it has become the rescuer of farmers in Africa and its millions of people in general.  At the beginning, Nterenya and his crew merely succeeded in producing 11 tonnes of Aflasafe that was a drop in the ocean, going by the massive need of Nigeria and Africa to confront this destructive fungus.  The production however increased with time and today, the total production of Aflasafe in Nigeria is now 1,470,416, covering 200,000 hectares of farms. Richard said the target of IITA is that, by 2021, it should be able to cover 500,000 hectares. The institute has even gone beyond that and it has put machinery in place to outsource the technology to private companies. Thus, it has licensed a company called Harvestfield Industries to produce 1500 tonnes of Aflasafe in a year in the country. It is also planning to upgrade the Ibadan plant. The target is to get the institute to be at the background and be devoted solely to research and training.

• Appeal court overrule Tambuwal’s pardon on Sokoto officials over fraud

The institute also began the process of making the whole of Africa its catchment area for this intervention. In 2015, Kenya wrote to IITA crying for help. Its one million acre Galana-Kulaku farm which it positioned to give the country food security was endangered. Aflatoxicosis seriously threatened to destroy this dream. In response to the Kenyan distressed call, IITA produced 238 tonnes of Aflasafe which it airlifted to Kenya. At the end of the day, the institute was able to save its 3500 hectares of maize which was sufficient for it to feed 493,000 people in its drought-stricken counties. IITA later built a modular Aflasafe manufacturing plant at Kalto in Kenya.

Currently, the institute has taken its intervention to six other African countries, apart from Nigeria and Kenya. They are Gambia, Senegal, Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania and Burkina-Faso. Mozambique, for instance, recently suffered aflatoxicosis in its groundnuts and IITA is partnering a private company called Norges Veil to get the Aflasafe technology to the aid of its farmers. In Rwanda, the institute, by practicing what is called product development, in partnership with the Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB) and with the assistance of AGRAFUND, is also constructing a manufacturing board to combat the aflatoxicosis while a few months ago, Pakistan equally reached out to the institute to partner it in the combat of aflatoxicosis in the country.

Another pioneering work of the Nterenya-led IITA is in the manufacturing in 2014 of a product called Nodumax, a legume inoculant product which its business incubation platform developed. Its brief was to increase the yield of legume crops like soybeans, clover, peas, chickpeas, lentils, lupin bean, mesquite, carob, peanuts and tamarind. By acting as fertilizer to increase yields of crops by about forty per cent, Nodumax is in high demand by flour companies and farmers in Ghana, Cotonou, Mozambique, Togo, Uganda and Zambia have introduced it to their farms.

When he took over as the DG of the institute in 2011, Nterenya gave the IITA what he called a Refreshed Strategy 2012-2020. In it, he stated, among other things, that “IITA and its partners will raise over 11 million Africans out of poverty and redirect 7.5 million hectares of agricultural  land to productive and sustainable use” so that it could “reduce poverty, increase food security, correct under-nutrition and promote more sustainable management of natural resources.” The 7th IITA DG has done a lot in this regard, making IITA one of the best international agricultural research-for-development centres in the world. For instance, it developed a maize variety rich in protein and tolerant of drought that it released to the Nigerian government in 2011 and 2012. Some of the varieties are extra-early maturing and several are Vitamin A-rich hybrids which are helping to address its deficiency in diets. In 2012, it developed a pro-Vitamin A cassava suitable for food such as gari, fufu and high-quality cassava flour which is helping to improve the livelihoods of farmers in Africa.

More fundamentally is the way the 7th DG of the institute has rescued it from a decaying institution he inherited from an American who was his predecessor. Apart from providing magnificent infrastructure in about eight countries that were not there when he took over, its Ibadan base has been totally transformed into a city that can unequivocally be mistaken for a foreign country institution. Sorry pictures of the decay of a foremost institute conceived by the young military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon in 1967, in contrast to what it is at the moment, would make anyone see the pride that Africa could become if only there is adherence to rules and commitment. A foreign visitor had jokingly referred to IITA as about the only institution in Nigeria that works perfectly without the age-long virus of ineptitude, cronyism and graft destroying it. Nterenya however believes that his best is yet to come in IITA.

Adebayo sent this piece from Abuja.