ABSTRACT
Food safety, with its emphasis on food quality, in the developing countries of Africa is an issue that frequently must be balanced by issues of food security with their emphasis on sufficiency of supply. Droughts during 2002 in a number of countries
of southern Africa have made staple food supplies tenuous, while the reality for rural subsistence farmers is that, irrespective of food quality, the lack of economic alternatives frequently means that all food produced must be consumed by the local community. Even with adequate crops, poor traditional storage facilities can lead to fungal deterioration. Such a situation arose from excessive rains in Somalia over the period of late 1997 and early 1998.
