Kumasi, Oct.25, GNA -A mycotoxin laboratory has been installed within the biochemistry laboratory of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to help detect aflatoxin and other deleterious contaminants in processed cereals in the country.

Currently because of the high concentration of aflatoxin in local maize and legumes, large quantities of maize and other feeds for the poultry industry had to be imported into the country.

The Trade and Investment Programme for a Competitive Export Economy (TIPCEE), a USAID funded project, which installed the equipment said the facility was a component of the overall supply chain intervention to improve the productivity, efficiency and quality of maize, legumes, chili and other processed products from farm to retail. The laboratory, which will be managed by a board comprising representatives from the university's private enterprise zone, the Association of Poultry Farmers, Ghana Nuts, Premium Foods and the USAID, will operate on commercial basis.

Ms Cheryl L. Anderson, Mission Director of USAID Ghana, who handed over the lab, said the establishment of the lab would expand market opportunities for processed foods to be sold beyond the borders of Ghana, adding that, certified aflatoxin free maize would significantly reduce the importation of maize and other feeds into the country.

It would also meet industry need for accurate and timely food analysis and provide greater assurance of higher quality and safer food entering the domestic food chain.

Ms. Anderson said the development of the private/public partnership in the management of the laboratory would strengthen the poultry industry in the matter of addressing issues of policy and market development. Professor Aboagye Menyeh, Provost, College of Sciences, who received the laboratory on behalf of the university, thanked USAID for the gesture and said it would help improve the quality of maize and other cereals used in the poultry industry.