Jarvis Paris Murphy Grain didn’t deal much in corn this year, said Gerald Freeman, foreman at the McLennan County grain elevator. The Central Texas corn crop was riddled with aflatoxin, so the elevator focused on such crops as milo and wheat.

“This year they didn’t go out and try to buy it,” Freeman said.

The millions of dollars in damage to the crop has yet to be tallied, but McLennan County in 2010 was part of a region hard hit by aflatoxin, said David Gibson, executive director of the Texas Corn Producers Board.

Foreman Gerald Freeman explains testing methods for aflatoxin at Jarvis Paris Murphy Grain, the McLennan County grain elevator.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald

Aflatoxin has long been a significant drain on corn crops, especially in the South. Efforts are under way in the industry and in Washington, D.C., to create an institute to address aflatoxin, Gibson said.

Aflatoxin forms on corn plants subjected to stressful conditions, especially higher than normal temperatures while the plant is growing.

In Central Texas, which produces 15 percent of the Texas corn crop, heavy rain in late winter delayed planting.

The delay meant farmers were unable to harvest before midsummer’s high temperatures and dry conditions encouraged the growth of the fungus that produces aflatoxin.

Harmful levels

At certain levels, aflatoxin is harmful to humans and animals. If people consume the substance at high levels during an extended period, it can cause liver cancer, said Craig Nessler, director of Texas AgriLife Research, an agricultural research group with ties to Texas A&M University.

In the United States, a thorough testing system keeps the food supply safe, Nessler said. Depending on how much aflatoxin is in a farmer’s corn harvest, it can be pulled from use for human consumption.

At higher aflatoxin levels, it may be used for animal feed purposes only. Often the levels are so high it cannot even be used for animal feed and the crop is plowed under.

If aflatoxin levels exceed 20 parts per billion, it cannot be used for human food. At levels of as much as 300 ppb, it can be used for many kinds of livestock, including beef cattle.

Contaminated corn cannot be used in dairy cattle, because while aflatoxin is not passed to meat, it will go into a cow’s milk. At more than 300 ppb, it’s useless for either human or animal food.

Aflatoxin causes tens of millions of dollars in crop losses nationally each year and strikes Texas, the South and Southeast especially hard, Gibson said.

The new institute being pushed would be called the Aflatoxin Mitigation Center of Excellence.

2012 bill

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, is working to include funding in an agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012 to create the center, said Josh Taylor, Edwards’ spokesman.

The center would be based at Texas AgriLife Research and involve six other institutions — Auburn, Mississippi State, North Carolina State University, Louisiana State University and the University of Georgia.

Nessler said it is important to involve institutions in other states because it is a widespread problem and because it is complex and will need research in a number of different scientific areas.

The funding needed to get started will likely run between $10 and $15 million, he said.

Gibson said earlier efforts to get money have been hampered by current federal policy preventing appropriations for new programs.

Nessler said the center would have three objectives:

*  To develop strains of corn resistant to the growth of the fungus;

*  To treat contaminated corn after it is harvested to make it useful;

*  To develop better tests to find out if aflatoxin is in a corn crop.

The testing problem has the attention of farmers. Test results are often inconsistent between testers, and corn from the same field often has wide variances in the amounts, Nessler said.

A farmer with a bad result may wonder if the crop he destroys was really okay, industry experts said.

“There’s no good test for it. It’s just inconsistent,” said Paul Morris, who manages the JPM elevator.

There are some aflatoxin measures that have been developed, but are not quite ready for widespread use, he said.

One treatment that has made it to the market, a substance called Afla-Guard, shows promise.

It causes a strain of fungus related to the aflatoxin-producing fungus, but which does not produce aflatoxin to grow on the corn and prevents the other strain from growing.

More development of such products is needed and that would be helped by creation of the center, Gibson said.

bteeter@wacotrib.com

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