Climate change reaches the kitchen. The same forces damaging crops in the field — heat, floods, drought — change the risks in the food you store and sell.
What is changing
- Higher temperatures speed spoilage and pest activity in stores
- Floods contaminate food, stores and water with sewage and chemicals
- Drought-stressed maize and groundnuts carry higher mycotoxin risk
- Erratic rains push grain into storage before it is properly dry
What to do
- Dry grain thoroughly before storage — it should snap, not bend
- Store on pallets off the floor, away from walls, in ventilated rooms
- Inspect stored food regularly; discard mouldy or musty stock entirely — do not feed it to animals either
- After flooding, treat or boil drinking water and discard any food floodwater touched
- Wash hands and produce; keep raw and cooked foods separate
When in doubt
Mycotoxins survive cooking. Food that is mouldy, musty or flood-damaged cannot be made safe in the kitchen. Throwing it away is cheaper than the illness it causes. Follow product labels and local public-health and extension advice.