Microbial food contamination is an on-going limiting factor in crop production that canrndetermine the shelf life of processed and unprocessed foods. Spice plants and herbs arerncommonly used as food flavoring and seasoning agents. Their antimicrobial properties as foodrnpreservatives are also well documented. In this study, essential oils of seven spice plants wererntested for their antimicrobial properties against Aspergillus flavus and A. niger, two of the mostrnimportant food and feed spoilage organisms. Agar disk diffusion assay was used for screeningrnof the most effective essential oils, agar dilution assay was used to determine MinimumrnInhibitory Concentration (MIC) of the essential oils and broth dilution assay was employed tornthe spore germination inhibition assay. Tests were also conducted to examine the effects of thernessential oils for sorghum kernel protection against the tested fungi, and the optimal protectiverndosages on the sorghum grains were also determined. From the preliminary tests, essential oilsrnof Cinnamomum zeylanicum (Cinnamon) and Thymus schimperi (thymus) were found to be thernmost effective. However piper nigrum (black pepper) had no effect on the test organisms. InrnMIC, spore germination inhibition and grain protection assay, cinnamon essential oil was foundrnto be superior where its MIC on the isolates was found to be 0.0156% and its optimumrnprotective dosage on the grain was 5%. It inhibited spore germination at a concentration of 3rn_L/ml. The effect of thymus oil was also very much comparable to these results (no significantrndifference at P < 0.05).rnFinally, it could be concluded that some plant essential oils can be a useful source of antifungalrnagents for protection of grain spoilage by fungi.