The impact of the MyToolBox project quantified
The MyToolBox project resulted in a list of proposed prevention or control measures along the supply chain. The impact assessment made for these measures can help decision makers in the food and feed supply chain decide which one works best for them.
BY EMMY KOELEMAN T
he European Commission (EC) estimates that myco- toxin contamination results in annual global crop losses of 5 to 10%, resulting in billions of Euros of lost income. Reducing these losses by only 1% could
already provide significant savings and increase EU competi- tiveness. Prevention and control of mycotoxin contamination is, however, highly complex due to regional and seasonal re- lated variations in mycotoxigenic fungal diversity and their associated mycotoxin occurrence. And despite the EU’s strict (official) controls for imports of food and feed ingredients and finished products, mycotoxins are still number one on the list of the RASFF notifications for contaminants (RASFF, 2019).
EU project with 23 partners Stakeholders can minimise and reduce mycotoxin contamination of crops, and the subsequent processed food and feed products, by relying on practical and affordable tools that have been developed over the last two decades. The main goal of the EC funded project MyToolBox was the development and merging of various management practices along the entire food production chain to significantly reduce mycotoxin contamination and product losses. These practices were integrated into an e-tool to assist decision making for all actors in the food and feed supply. The MyToolBox project, which ran between 2016-2020, involved 23 partners from 11 countries, with 40% of the project partners from industry. In the paper discussed here, published first in the World Mycotoxin Journal*, the researchers aimed to estimate the impact of these prevention and control measures on both the reduction in crop losses and the increased volume of crops suitable for food and/or feed.
Different case studies Five prevention and control strategies, investigated during the MyToolBox project, covering various stages of the food supply chain, were chosen as case studies: 1. Pre-harvest: use of fungicide to control Fusarium head blight
▶ MYCOTOXINS | NOVEMBER 2021
2. Pre-harvest: use of resistant maize cultivars and/or biocontrol
3. Post-harvest: Improved silo management 4. Post-harvest: Innovative milling strategies 5. Post-harvest: Safe use options The impact of each prevention or control measure was estimated for each case. The effects of the control strategy on mycotoxin contamination were estimated, for both the test region, where the prevention or control strategy was developed and the data was collected, and extrapolated to the European region, where appropriate. For cases 3, 4 and 5, the impact on the reduction in waste was also included. For each case, the effect of the prevention or control measure was compared to its baseline situation.
Results pre-harvest When we look at the pre-harvest measures (cases 1 and 2), one of the findings was that if 50% of the farmers in Europe would use the Adepidyn fungicide, on average an extra volume of 357,000 tonnes wheat per year could be used as
The MyToolBox project looked at various mycotoxin reducing practices along the entire food production chain.
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PHOTO:MARK PASVEER
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