Food safety hazards arising at the farm level affect the health of agricultural households as well as access to high value markets, which typically require that produce meets strict quality and food safety standards. Smallholder farmers face a number of barriers to improving the quality and safety of their produce, including a lack of awareness about safety and quality standards, the cost of equipment required to improve these, and the failure of premium prices to pass through to farmers. In this paper, we examine how lifting each of these barriers affects Ghanaian groundnut farmers' adoption of post-harvest practices that reduce aflatoxin contamination. Aflatoxins are carcinogenic secondary metabolites of certain molds, which cause serious health problems including liver cancer. Common in groundnuts and maize, staple foods in much of Africa, aflatoxins pose a major threat to food safety and hinder the development of local agricultural value chains and export markets. Aflatoxin contamination can be substantially reduced through low-tech, low-cost post-harvest practices. We conducted a randomized control trial in northern Ghana with 1,005 farmers over the course of two seasons to test the imapct of three interventions to improve post harvest practices and reduce aflatoxin levels: (1) farmer training on aflatoxin and its prevention, (2) distribution of free drying tarps, and (3) a price premium for groundnuts found to comply with the local aflatoxin regulation. Training farmers substantially improves post-harvest practices. Tarp receipt further improves some practices, particularly with regards to drying surface. Surprisingly, we find that the price premium had little effect on reported or observed practices, and few farmers even sold nuts at this premium despite achieving compliance. Relative to training alone, tarp distribution reduced afaltoxin contamination by approximately 50 percent in the region and year when background levels were highest. The market premium also reduced aflatoxin levels, although to a lesser extent. Recent analysis indicates that the global health burden attributable to unsafe food compares to that of malaria or tuberculosis, and disproportionately affects developing countries (Havelaar et al., 2015). Further, food safety hazards, many of which arise at the farm level, can lock farmers out of valuable markets, and may tarnish the reputations of entire nations, limiting export opportunties. Many barriers prevent farmers in developing countries from adoptoing better food safety practices. First, long-neglected agricultural extension systems mean that information on food safety hazards and their prevention is scarce (Anderson and Feder, 2004). Second, the small scale of production and low incomes of farm households can make adoption of technologies to improve the safety of produce unprofitable, or simply unaffordable. Finally, premiums for safer food and other difficult to observe qualities often do not pass through to the primary producer (Fafchamps, Hill, and Minten, 2008). In this paper, w...

Food safety hazards arising at the farm level affect the health of agricultural households as well as access to high value markets, which typically require that produce meets strict quality and food safety standards. Smallholder farmers face a number of barriers to improving the quality and safety of their produce, including a lack of awareness about safety and quality standards, the cost of equipment required to improve these, and the failure of premium prices to pass through to farmers. In this paper, we examine how lifting each of these barriers affects Ghanaian groundnut farmers' adoption of post-harvest practices that reduce aflatoxin contamination. Aflatoxins are carcinogenic secondary metabolites of certain molds, which cause serious health problems including liver cancer. Common in groundnuts and maize, staple foods in much of Africa, aflatoxins pose a major threat to food safety and hinder the development of local agricultural value chains and export markets. Aflatoxin contamination can be substantially reduced through low-tech, low-cost post-harvest practices. We conducted a randomized control trial in northern Ghana with 1,005 farmers over the course of two seasons to test the imapct of three interventions to improve post harvest practices and reduce aflatoxin levels: (1) farmer training on aflatoxin and its prevention, (2) distribution of free drying tarps, and (3) a price premium for groundnuts found to comply with the local aflatoxin regulation. Training farmers substantially improves post-harvest practices. Tarp receipt further improves some practices, particularly with regards to drying surface. Surprisingly, we find that the price premium had little effect on reported or observed practices, and few farmers even sold nuts at this premium despite achieving compliance. Relative to training alone, tarp distribution reduced afaltoxin contamination by approximately 50 percent in the region and year when background levels were highest. The market premium also reduced aflatoxin levels, although to a lesser extent.Recent analysis indicates that the global health burden attributable to unsafe food compares to that of malaria or tuberculosis, and disproportionately affects developing countries (Havelaar et al., 2015). Further, food safety hazards, many of which arise at the farm level, can lock farmers out of valuable markets, and may tarnish the reputations of entire nations, limiting export opportunties. Many barriers prevent farmers in developing countries from adoptoing better food safety practices. First, long-neglected agricultural extension systems mean that information on food safety hazards and their prevention is scarce (Anderson and Feder, 2004). Second, the small scale of production and low incomes of farm households can make adoption of technologies to improve the safety of produce unprofitable, or simply unaffordable. Finally, premiums for safer food and other difficult to observe qualities often do not pass through to the primary producer (Fafchamps, Hill, and Minten, 2008). In this paper, we...

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