From infestation to mold, inadequate storage facilities often lead to large grain losses in many countries, hampering efforts to improve national food security for the poorest families. Even efforts by national governments across Africa to store grain in large quantities have often yielded disappointing results.

These are some of the challenges that more than 100 experts from 15 countries discussed at the first Africa Strategic Grain Reserve conference held in Nairobi last week. The conference brought together governments, grain traders, researchers, international organisations and innovative storage technology companies whose primary concern is provision of safe storage solutions for national grain reserve agencies.

Estimates indicate that 30 per cent of grain produced by developing economies is lost due to multiple factors, including poor storage facilities.

Owing to the gravity of the situation, the United Nations declared that halving food loss by 2030 is a key Sustainable Development Goal.

Post-harvest loss is one of "the most unanswered and ignored challenges” to food insecurity in Africa, representing more than $4 billion in lost value every year. Therefore, Governments, co-operative societies and farmers need to have better access to appropriate storage facilities and access to new technologies to reduce these losses, according to participants at the conference.

Another major food safety and storage issue discussed at the Nairobi meeting is the high prevalence of aflatoxin found in maize and other staple commodities.

Aflatoxins are poisonous and cancer-causing moulds, that can also lead to stunting in children, and severe health problems in adults.

They are regularly found in improperly stored commodities, such as maize, cassava, millet, rice, sorghum, and wheat. When contaminated grain is processed, aflatoxins enter the general food supply where they have been found in both pet and human foods. Aflatoxin contamination across food systems undermines the gains made in improving production systems in the developing world.

A major part of the solution to the aflatoxin challenge lies in adequate handling and storage of grains. Increased understanding of challenges and opportunities of grain reserves in the African context will go a long way to mitigating aflatoxin contamination in strategic crops.

There is wide recognition that strategic grain reserves play a vital role in ensuring the food security, enabling countries to have ready reserves to distribute to famine striken regions, as well as helping reduce commodity prices fluctuations for staples. This is especially when the available grain supplies reduce drastically between growing seasons.

In the past, grain reserves have been instrumental in stabilising food prices, managing disasters, and protecting the poor with social safety nets programmes.

The challenge has been implementing a grain reserve system in a socially optimal way. However, thanks to technological advancements, the feasibility of setting up an efficient grain reserve, with links to agricultural price policies and social safety nets, is now better than ever before.

Governments often buy grain during harvest time from small farmers, creating demand when it is most needed, a move that helps farmers benefit more from the efforts as the grain will be sold at better prices.

Smallholder farmers, as the key producers of grain, are the backbone of this supply chain.

Solving the problem of post-harvest losses, and building safe, long-term storage for grains will have a major positive impact on the financial lives of smallholder farmers, as well as the health of their communities through improved nutrition, besides benefitting the environment.

There are multiple opportunities and technologies for African governments to significantly reduce post-harvest losses. GrainPro, Inc, a green, "not-only-for-profit" company that focuses on the safe storage and drying of grains and seeds, for instance, is committed to improving large-scale storage, reducing food losses and protecting African consumers from the serious health consequences of high aflatoxin levels

Philippe Villers is president of GrainPro, and Anne Mbaabu is head, markets and harvest management at AGRA. Amare Ayalew is the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA)programme manager, Shahid Rashid is a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Cynthia Ryan is the director of the Schooner Africa Fund, also contribute to this article.