In 1960, veterinarians discovered an unknown toxic substance in poultry feed to have caused the death of hundreds of thousands of British turkeys. Veterinarians collaborated with nutrition scientists, chemists, toxicologists, and mycologists to identify what became known as aflatoxin, a carcinogenic poison produced by Aspergillus molds. Soon, researchers in India, Africa, and elsewhere reported finding aflatoxin and other mycotoxins in peanuts, corn, and other crops. Many of them were important foodstuff, fodder, and export commodities for the new postcolonial nations. As aflatoxin became a global problem, because it arose in many different areas and affected major internationally traded commodities, the substance also emerged as a scientific object that would drive interdisciplinary and transnational collaborations for the next sixty years. The researchers investigated aflatoxin’s effects on human and animal health as well as which relations of crop, mold, environment, and humans’ agricultural practices resulted in the formation of mycotoxins. This paper argues that multispecies relations, Cold War and postcolonial geopolitics, and global trade influenced which regions and disciplines were involved in the collaborations that shaped the knowledge about aflatoxin. Focusing on the 1960s, this paper shows how concerns over the production and supply of animal- and plant-based protein-rich food to populations in postwar Great Britain and the newly independent nations in Asia and Africa shaped scientists’ interdisciplinary collaborations across Great Britain, India, and the United States.
