Study notes ill-effects of aflatoxin on poultry, livestock

Aflatoxin or molds in plants particularly corn develop at the early stages of the plant. However, this kind of molds is still non toxic when ingested by animals.

Aflatoxin developed during harvesting, stockpiling, drying and even while in transport to the intended markets for corn becomes hazardous to livestock based on the experience of swine and poultry farmers.

On swine and poultry, aflatoxin-laden corn in feeds leads to stunted growth and fewer eggs to still births and other deformities among the chicks and piglets, according to a report of LIMCOMA president Nicanor Briones.

Briones and the leader of the Feedmillers Association of Batangas (FAB) voiced the need to produce and sell local yellow corn at the internationally accepted aflatoxin level of 50 ppb (parts per billion).

At this level, the rate at which animals would ingest toxic aflatoxin would be greatly reduced and therefore result in better production and better quality of chicks and pigs.

Unless corn is dried and properly processed and milled, swine and poultry farmers can not hope to improve the productivity of their farms unless they continue buying imported feeds, which, however, have become more expensive lately because of the deterioration of the peso.

Since most (palay and) corn farmers depend heavily on natural sun drying, the quality of their produce becomes erratic depending on the intensity of sunlight, they said.

The estimated losses from natural sundrying and crude methods of harvesting and poor post harvest facilities is from 20 to 30 percent, they said.

The best way to improve corn quality is to mechanize the harvesting and post harvesting stages so that corn is no longer exposed to natural elements and the resulting spoilage, they said.

LIMCOMA and FAB joined the roadshow of the National Corn Competitiveness Board that is intended to push the production of hybrid corn and establish a sustainable corn industry through the adoption of the Grains Highway Program.

At the roadshow held last week in Lipa, Batangas by Corn Board Vice Chair Theresa Cruz-Capellan, who is also Undersecretary for Food Security and Job Generation, Capellan said unless corn farmers form themselves into clusters of 500 hectares or more, they can not mechanize (because of the high cost of machines) nor can they achieve economies of scale from their farms.

The Corn Board is pushing for clustering of farms to be professionally managed by a professional farm manager, who takes charge of consolidating the landholdings and packaging the targeted output to intended markets (buyers), after which a marketing agreement can now be used by the farm manager in securing production and subsistence loans to the farmers belonging to the cluster.

This way, the individual farmers (with an estimated corn farm of one to three hectares) who have depended solely on the crop all their lives will now have all the time to devote to other income opportunities like getting into livestock or inland fisheries and other rural businesses, Capellan said.

"It would now be easier to secure a huge loan from the bank to fully mechanize the clustered farm from land preparation to harvesting to packaging and even moving the corn to the buyers with whom the service provider forged a marketing agreement," Capellan said.

Likewise, banks will have greatly reduced administrative costs and risks for the loan since they will be dealing only with the service provider or the manager of the clustered farms, she added.