Climate Change leads to an increase of harmful mycotoxins

Mycotoxins

As the European Food Safety Autority (EFSA) reports, the increase in temperature and CO2 concentration in the air and an altered distribution of rainfall promote the spread of moulds (especially in maize and cereals) which produce harmful mycotoxins. The accumulation of these mycotoxins in plant tissues results in the contamination of feed and food.

 

For example, in the past decade the mycotoxin “Aflatoxin” spread in maize across southern Europe due to warm and humid weather. Aflatoxin is genotoxic and reduces immune response in humans and animals.

 

In future there will be also an increased occurrence of moulds and higher contaminations of mycotoxins in central Europe. Therefore, EFSA continuously expands its data collection about the occurrence of mycotoxin contaminations. A thoroughly monitoring is the only way to predict future mycotoxin levels and to recommend appropriate countermeasures.

 

As a matter of principle the health risk of mycotoxins for humans and animals should be kept as low as possible. Therefore, the maximum permitted level of mycotoxins in food and feed have been set or at least recommended by the European Union (EU). Furthermore there are also other national regulations, especially in the food sector.

 

You can find more information under the following links:

 

EU:

DE


Your Plus: The AGROLAB GROUP with its specialized food laboratory LUFA-ITL provides reliable and precise analytics of mycotoxins and is your ideal laboratory partner for the quality control of your products. For and individual offer regarding your needs please contact your responsible sales person in your region. (You can find your contact person by using the contact finder on the right hand side of our website.)

  

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently published a new video on “Mycotoxins and Climate Change”. It is about the increasing distribution of moulds in Europe due to climate change. The following link leads to the corresponding video: https://www.14dd5266c70789bdc806364df4586335-gdprlock/


Further information about the work of EFSA on mycotoxins can be found on following website: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/

 

 

 

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