REVIEW ▶▶▶


WMF: The mycotoxin situation in Asia


The latest edition of the World Mycotoxin Forum took place in a continent where the platform hadn’t been before: Asia. In Bangkok, Thailand, researchers shared knowledge late January 2020, on how to cope with threats and challenges posed by mycotoxins in Asia.


D BY MARIEKE PLOEGMAKERS, EDITOR, ALL ABOUT FEED


espite all efforts to prevent the occurrence of my- cotoxins, Asian animal feed has been widely con- taminated with mycotoxins in recent years, this is according to a a large-scale survey carried out by


the Biomin Research Centre. “92% of the samples were con- taminated with at least one mycotoxin and 88% of the sam- ples were co-contaminated,” stated Dr Gerd Schatzmayr of the research centre. The survey consisted of 24,455 samples from 17 Asian coun- tries from 2008 to 2019. Prevalence and mixtures of co-con- tamination of mycotoxins varied between regions. In East Asia the mycotoxins desoxynivalenol (DON), zearalenone (ZEN) and fumonisins (FUM) appear to be more prevalent, whereas in South Asia and South East Asia aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) plays an important role. Schatzmayr: “In South Asia and South East Asia, 76.8% and 51% of the samples were positive for AFB1. More concerning is the fact that 40% of the South Asia samples and 20.6% of the South East Asia samples exceeded the EU maximum level for AFB1 in feed. AFB1 can be seen as a major risk for animal health in these regions.”


Impact on food safety and security In addition to the risk of mycotoxins to animal health, the risk to human health and food security is perhaps even greater in Asia. According to Prof Naresh Magan of Cranfield University, UK, climate change will have a high impact on Asia’s food safety and security. “It’s expected that Asia will face changing temperatures, elevated CO2


fluence yield and nutritional quality. Since most of Asia is highly dependent on rice, food security will be threatened.” The testing on mycotoxins also needs attention. Unavailability of a standardised or validated sampling procedure seems to be a challenge and sampling protocols need to be standard- ised. Also instead of testing large numbers of end-products for mycotoxin contamination it would be more pro-active to test real-time at field level, according to Ronald Niemeijer, R-Biop- harm, Germany. “The use of mobile devices will open new ways of mycotoxin testing, analysing and mostly sharing of data. Data can be available from everywhere in real-time, which will help to create more precise predictive models. An easy to use, mobile tool will be essential.” During the last day of the Forum, the main outcome of the conference was summarised. Prof Rudolf Krska of BOKU Uni- versity, Austria and Prof Chris Elliott of Queen’s University, Northern Ireland, both chairs of the conference, summarised the conference in top-5 answers learned: 1. Asia remains at high risk of aflatoxin contamination with changing contamination levels including increased FUM and ZEA contamination and considerable co-contamination.


2. Inter and intra-region research network collaboration and capacity building in the ASEAN region is needed to in- crease awareness of mycotoxins and to mitigate the issue.


3. Monitoring mycotoxin contamination of crops, foods and beverages and human biomonitoring using mycotoxin bi- omarkers are important for exposure assessment in ASE- AN countries.


levels and weather events such as


extreme rainfall and droughts. These factors will influence the mycotoxin contamination of staple crops such as rice and maize. Contamination of staple crops with mycotoxins will in-


4. Minimising mycotoxin contamination is not only about technology; behavioural changes and sustained efforts on a daily basis are needed.


5. Implementation of multi-mycotoxin monitoring pro- grammes with product traceability across the supply chain.


▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 2, 2020 31


In between the presentations there was time for networking.


PHOTO: MISSET


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